


I would have given all of me to have you.

by makemeanybraver



Series: I would have given all of me to have you. [1]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Boss Bitch Beth, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Gang Violence, Grief/Mourning, Gun Violence, Hitman plot, Implied Sexual Content, Intimidation, Love Confessions, Mild substance abuse, Murder, OTP: King and Queen of Crime, Organized Crime, Plot Twists, Post-Season/Series 03, Soft Rio (Good Girls), Theft, Very Brief Rio/OFC, White Privilege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24613390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemeanybraver/pseuds/makemeanybraver
Summary: After Rio dies, Beth becomes in charge of leading the gang. She struggles to earn the respect and notoriety that comes with the title of the crime boss.When Rio comes back, he rejoins the gang as Beth's equal partner in crime. They rebuild their kingdom, and their relationship, one piece at a time.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Series: I would have given all of me to have you. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796500
Comments: 55
Kudos: 163





	1. Careful what you shoot because you might hit what you aim for

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy the story! Unbetaed all mistakes are my own.

Time stood still when Beth got the text. She had just come back home from carrying all the kids off to school on a Thursday. She was giving her kitchen a run-through. Wiping down the cabinets, polishing the countertops, cleaning out the fridge, while she merrily danced along to Beyonce on Spotify. It was like everything in the past came back to her mind all at once.

Rio sitting on her counter the first time they met each other.

Rio crushing one of the pig figurines she had stolen from Marion.

Rio telling her to lie to the FBI about them having an affair.

Rio getting put into a police car on the tv news while Beth was at the hospital with Dean.

Rio tying up Dean and shooting him in her dining room.

Rio holding a gun to her neck and saying he would teach her.

Rio sending her a key to storage lockers filled with fake money.

Rio pulling down her underwear, lifting the skirt of her dress, and fucking her on top of the sink and against the wall in a public bathroom.

Rio slamming a tire iron into the Corvette's windshield.

Rio yelling at her that she was a drug dealer, not a mother.

Rio sending her Janey's dubby.

Rio kissing her tenderly in her bedroom.

Rio saying she was just business.

Rio asking her to leave his loft.

Rio falling to the ground and spitting up blood.

Rio approaching her at the bar and handing her three bullet casings.

Rio taking her to see a doctor.

Rio killing Lucy.

Rio stealing everything from her home.

Rio handing her the gun used to kill Lucy.

Rio flirting with her as they walked through the Boland Bubbles showroom.

Every single thought traced back to him. She could hardly breathe.

_Finished._ Read the text from an anonymous number. It indicated one thing. Rio had fallen. Once and for all.

As the day progressed, Beth operated as a robot, completely unfeeling. Or rather, unwilling to recognize feeling. As if on autopilot. She went down to Boland Bubbles after taking care of the kitchen. Took stock of all the pending sales and recorded some numbers for them. Guided some potential buyers around the store. It wasn't until much later in the evening, at home on her couch with her girls and Desperate Housewives on pause that she took an opportunity to examine her feelings.

"Fitz apparently moved us up the schedule. He took care of it. This morning," she muttered quietly, completely opposed to the reactions those statements garnered. Cries of happiness. Relief that he wouldn't hurt them anymore. But Annie, always tuned into how her sister was feeling, knew.

"Hey, how do you feel about it?" she asked. But Beth supposed it didn't matter how she felt. She didn't feel how a _normal, sane person_ would feel. Ruby and Annie were normal and sane. Beth was irrational, emotional, senseless. A great liar.

"I mean... Finally, right?" she said before unpausing Desparate Housewives.

She laid still at night, clutching her fists tightly, breathing eratically, shedding tears quietly so she wouldn't wake up Dean.

The next day she got a note in the mail addressed to Elizabeth but not in the usual handwriting. It had a date, time, and address for a wake. _From Mick._

She didn't tell her sisters because they didn't need to know. She feigned ignorance.

"What happened?" she asked Mick once she could get him alone.

"He was supposed to meet us at a spot last Thursday but he was late. Wasn't answering calls. I go to his place to find him, and he's on the ground with a hole in his head," Mick choked out, obviously deeply disturbed.

Beth clears her throat. "He couldn't fight back?" she questions, coming closer to Mick and putting her hand up on his shoulder as a show of comfort.

"No. I checked everything out and I think whoever shot him did it from far away. We think it's someone from the west side, that hired someone else to kill him. He never saw it coming..." Mick explained further and stood with Beth in silence for a moment.

Beth sucked in a breath, hoping not to offend Mick. "Don't they usually have the body at a wake?" she asked quietly so none of the other family and friends around them could hear.

"His mother didn't want to present the body. His head was almost blown off," Mick responded leering his eyes at her.

Beth cowered, nodding her head and stepping back. "Yeah, of course, that makes sense," she said.

"Listen, Elizabeth, I know you and the boss had a... Challenging relationship. And I know you don't know anyone else here, but as his best friend since birth, I thought that he would want you to be here," Mick shared, which dug painfully at Beth's chest, rendering her unable to speak but nodding as her eyes started watering. She really didn't want to cry in front of Mick or anyone for that matter, even if there were dozens of people crying.

"By the way, you should come back here tomorrow. Marciella mentioned wanting to talk to you, but she's really too upset right now," Mick mentioned, and Beth was confused. Marciella, who gave a speech when most people arrived to the wake, was Rio's mother. Beth had basically gathered that Rio's dad died many years ago from gang violence, and that he would be really proud of the man his son became.

"Do you know what about?" Beth asked, but Mick shook his head no, and then excused himself to move on and talk to other people. Beth hung around for another couple of hours, thinking back again to all her memories of him. She was very glad that nobody approached her to talk to her because she had no idea what to say to any of them. She recognized some people who she knew worked with Rio, also Rhea and Marcus, and Dylan, but everyone else were family members that she never met or heard of. Beth took care to avoid Rhea because she didn't want to make this harder on her by having to see Beth there, since Rhea knew what Beth did the first time.

Only Marcus had come to her. When Rhea was in the bathroom and he could walk around without her. "My mama said I'm not allowed to play with Jane anymore," he said softly as he got up on the sofa next to her.

Beth's eyes softened and a tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at Marcus's innocent face. She cupped her hand on his cheek. "Yeah... I'm really sorry, buddy. It's just... Really complicated," Beth didn't even try explaining as she gently held his face in her hand and tried to keep the rest of her tears inside so Marcus wouldn't cry. "I'm gonna miss your daddy," she said softly.

Marcus nodded his head quickly in agreement and jumped off the sofa. "I gotta go now because mama doesn't like me talking to you either. Bye, Miss Elizabeth," he whispered, using his small hand to move hers away before walking off.

The next day she came back to the house, which was Marciella's home, to meet her. Upon opening the door, Marciella greeted her warmly and invited her in while offering her coffee. Beth felt rotten for accepting the offer and impolite for rejecting it. Not wanting to arouse suspicions or feelings of sadness, she accepted it. Her and Marciella sat down at the kitchen table together and made brief small talk about the weather or whatever. Beth was just following her lead. She was incredibly sweet and looked very youthful, with very few wrinkles and only a few odd streaks of gray in her dark brown hair. Beth guessed that she had had Rio very young, just as Beth had had hers. But her eyes were hard, cold, just the type of look you would expect from a woman who just lost her eldest son at only 36 years of age.

"Anyway," Marciella said. "It's good to finally meet you and talk to you. Christopher had told me so much about you," she said, smiling softly as she put her hand over Beth's.

"Really?" Beth asked in surprise. She never would have guessed that Rio _talked_ about her, with his mother nonetheless. "Um... Good things?" she asked hopefully, then briefly wondering why even in his death she still cared what Rio thought of her.

"Sometimes..." Marciella said, nodding. "I know that you had a very difficult relationship with my son. Knowing that you come from a family where you don't do the kinds of things that my family does... Well, I'm sure it was hard. And I don't believe my son made it easy for you," she said as she rubbed Beth's hand with her thumb. Beth could not even look her in the face, so she simply just nodded and agreed with her.

"He didn't tell me exactly. But a mother can always tell. I believe he had very complicated feelings for you. Besides the romantic feelings, I know that he very much admired you. He would tell me about how quickly you came up with new ideas. How easily you could understand and manipulate people. How strong-willed you are and how capable you are of doing what it takes to survive in this world... Even so much as shooting the man that, I don't know, you might have loved," she began to explain in greater and greater detail. At the end, Beth got a sick feeling in her stomach. She couldn't believe that his mother knew about the shooting but still wanted to talk to her. Beth started to get a sense that she was being threatened by a sweet woman no less than 20 years her senior.

"I think I should go. Thank you so much for the coffee," Beth said quietly, feeling scared as she stood up and tried to step back but then Marciella's grip on her hand strengthened like Marciella had glued her to the kitchen table.

"Please, stay, Elizabeth," Marciella said in a way that very much reminded her of Rio, so much so it almost felt like sitting across from him.

"What my son was in the business of doing is, of course, dangerous. Many people have wanted him dead but until now none have ever suceeded. He had a very long run as the leader of the gang. Longer than his father, even. Not infrequently, we would talk about the future of the gang if he were to disappear. Who would carry it forward. Before he met you, we always agreed that it would be Mickey. They started working around the same time, they were wonderful friends, had known each other since diapers. But then... You came along. Me and Rio, we discussed the possibility of you taking the charge, Elizabeth," Marciella explained suddenly in a way leaving Beth totally dumbfounded. She could not believe what she was hearing, in fact, was more inclined to believe she was dreaming.

"What? What are you saying? I can't.... I can't do that," Beth said, shaking her head in confusion, thinking this must be a joke.

"It would be great for the face of the gang. You can easily make it look like you are not involved anymore and the police would believe you. You could continue working with us and nobody would suspect that you, a forty year old white woman, with four children and a husband, run the whole operation of a Latino gang. With Christopher's guys around you, you would be more protected. It will not be as dangerous for you because they will work for you, not go after you. I would help guide you as well, just as I did for my son and my husband. You would be bringing home more money for yourself and those other women, Annie and Ruby. Christopher told me that you were very important to the operation. I think in more ways than you realize. He said that you could be something, Elizabeth. That it could all be yours, one day," Marciella finally seemed to finish saying her piece. Instead of reacting immediately, Beth took a minute to process exactly what Marciella was asking of her. She fully expected her to bust out laughing any second and throw her out of the house. But that moment never came.

Beth opened her mouth to speak but found herself crippled by the guilt of having to face a man's mother like this after she ordered a hit on him and by the sheer confusion at Marciella's proposal. When Marciella realized that Beth wasn't going to answer, she picked up again. "Think about it, Elizabeth. Think about if this is something you want. Do not let yourself be talked out of something that _you_ want by people who think they know what is best for _you_. Come back to me when you have an answer," Marciella proposed.

But it continued nagging at Beth, how absurd this was if they always thought it would be Mick and if Beth still had so much to prove because even if she shot Rio, she didn't kill him. "Why me?" Beth questioned after a long moment of silence. She finally brought herself to meet Marciella's gaze after the tension in the room settled. When she looked into Marciella's eyes, with her jaw clenched and her fists tightly balled against herself, Beth didn't see any indication of Marciella hiding the truth.

"There is no one else like you, Elizabeth," she said. And Beth felt comfortable leaving the conversation there. She walked out of the house knowing that she would agree to it, but begging that someone could talk her out of it. When she brought it up to her girls, they, like her, could not believe it. First, they could not believe that Beth went to Rio's wake in the first place. But that was explained away by Beth saying it would be impolite not to go when Mick invited her, because they knew Beth was anything but impolite. Second, they could not believe that Beth met Rio's mother, and had more than a couple questions about her.

"Well, Marciella was completely aware of what Rio did, and what his dad did too before he died. It seemed like she had a big role in, like, advising them of what to do and stuff. And, she's beautiful. She's tall, has long, dark brown and gray hair, and carries herself so confidently. She's sweet, but intimidating, and strong. I mean, she is so much like him, or I guess, he was so much like her. Talking with her, it was just like being with him..." Beth answered, biting her lip nervously. Most of all, what they could not believe was Marciella's proposition, or that Beth would even seriously consider it, but it all came down to one thing. "We could really use the money," she said, then brought up the cost of Sara's medications, a new apartment for Dean so he could finally move out, Annie's therapy, paying back Stan, all the kids' college funds, Annie's future EMT training, and maybe they could finally go back to taking more vacations and getting nice things without barely having to scrape by.

"How could it be worth it? I mean, leading a _GANG_ , sis. You'll be putting yourself in danger, your kids, us! That's how Rio died!" Annie said emphatically.

"No, no, Rio died because we killed him. We did that to him. And I would never get involved with someone like me. Okay, and besides, it would not be as dangerous because I'd have protection, like he always did. Mick would be with me, Bullet and Demon would be with me, and by the way, I'm gonna have to get those two new nicknames because there is no way in hell that I'm going to be calling them that," Beth insisted, and Ruby twisted her face at that.

"What are you going to call them, then, Beth? Even if you did get on board, you said that Marciella and Rio talked about Mick taking over. What makes you think that Mick or any of those gangster macho men will respect you if you took over? How are you going to boss them around?" Ruby asked condescendingly, which additionally ticked off Annie.

"Hey, she could set them straight, if she wanted to," Annie said defensively.

"Beth, of course, you're a boss. I admire that about you, but let's be realistic here. They've been following the word of a Hispanic man with a neck tattoo for who knows how long. Do you really think that you'll just show up to the office tomorrow and they'll just listen to you? How are you going to pull _that_ off?" Ruby repeated.

Beth took a deep breath. "I'll figure it out as I go. Rio vouched for me and that has to count for something. He would not have picked me if he didn't think I was capable of it. Maybe, with me in charge, I can get them to stop killing innocent people," Beth said hopefully, thinking back to Lucy and wondering if she could have saved her, somehow. Or if she could save someone else next time. Quickly her thoughts devolved into wondering if she could have saved Rio, or if he was worth saving in the first place. "It's my fault... My fault that he's gone, I'm responsible for it. If this is what he wanted, and what Marciella wants, I should at least try..." she said quietly.

Later in the night, while she was in her bed, trying unsuccessfully to sleep, she saw him standing above her. Rio looked down at her with hooded eyes, leering at her like a predator with its prey, and she felt herself wishing that he would devour her, eat her alive until there was nothing left of her except in memories. Even in death, he pushed and pulled in opposing directions, should she jump in, sacrifice her old self and dive headfirst into a new life where she stopped pretending to be something she wasn't, or should she keep up the charade, all for the sake of the status quo? Taking the reins of Rio's gang felt like one thing too many like she couldn't deal with that while she was still mourning or celebrating his death and while she was just starting up Boland Bubbles. But as Rio stood by her bed, peering down at her with a lecherous gaze, Beth knew that after everything that happened, she owed him this. And Rio always came to collect what he was owed.


	2. The dead are gone, the living are hungry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth puts a plan into action to continue making money for the gang without attracting police attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone, I'm really sorry for letting the discussion in the comments of the last chapter get out of hand. I didn't want to pull anyone of my readers into such a negative conversation, and I won't let it happen again. With that being said, please enjoy the next chapter of the story!

Rio was missing. Everyone who was aware of the underground crime scene of Detroit took notice. The west side gang hadn't seen him drive through their turf for a few days. The FBI hadn't tracked any movement from him. The DPD hadn't received any new updates from the FBI. And Rio's gang was laying low and staying as far from the west side as possible. Beth was staying in communication with Marciella, sharing her concerns over how the other gang members would respect her and follow her word if she did take charge.

Marciella did not apparently share any of those same concerns. Because they listened to her. Marciella was not only Rio's mother, but she would babysit almost all the men and women in the gang when they were little. When a few of the members were basically disowned by their mothers when they found out the kinds of criminal activities they were involved in, Marciella assumed that role for them. Marciella had cook-outs every month where she would make fresh tortillas and grilled food for everyone to eat, to dance, to drink, and be merry.

And of course, not even Rio had always commanded the same level of respect the entire time he led. Respect was earned each time that he made a difficult choice for the good of his people and their operation. Leaving aside the fact that many people disagreed with him for keeping Beth, Annie, and Ruby alive after the first time they failed to deliver. Beth had a long road of difficult choices ahead of her. But with Marciella's blessing and Rio's deathwish for Beth to take over, Marciella swore to Beth that she would at least have a good place to start as long as she was ready for it.

"Is there anything I have to do to join? Like, uh..." Beth trailed off her question while gesturing at her neck. She felt silly asking if she needed to get a tattoo but every single person in the gang had more than a few, so a tattoo initiation didn't seem outside the realm of possibility.

Marciella chuckled at Beth's insinuation. "No, Elizabeth, you don't need to get a neck tattoo. Or any tattoo. We wanted you because you blend in so well with suburban Detroit. We don't want to ruin that image," she replied.

"Is there a reason for having someone that blends in now?" Beth questioned further.

"Well, I don't know if Rio mentioned it to you but we were beginning to consolidate over the past few weeks. Letting go of other businesses until we were mainly just funneling cash through your spa store. The gang has operated in East Detroit for over 20 years. There were some periods where we were more active than others because we noticed that the DPD and FBI started zeroing in on us. It wasn't until very recently that the FBI got close enough to arrest Rio and the others. Nobody else had been arrested before that. Of course, they only got the grocery store and had no evidence of our involvement in other areas around Detroit. It's been very difficult lately to carry on our activity without arousing increasing suspicions from the FBI. It's why Agent Turner had to go," Marciella tried explaining, but it still wasn't clicking.

"Well, but I've been watched by the FBI myself in the past. I don't know if anybody with the government is still watching me," Beth hedged.

"You need to give them a reason to stop watching you, then. You have to stop printing," Marciella said.

"If we consolidate and I don't print, then where are we gonna get the money from?" Beth wondered, but that was a question that Marciella did not have the answer to. One that Beth would have to figure out on her own. 

But an idea started brewing in her head when Annie lost her phone. Which was very strange considering Ruby had recently lost her phone too. The last place she remembered having it was during her break time at Fine and Frugal. She went back to work with the phone in her pocket, checked out a bunch of people, walked with the girl from the park to the granola aisle after she continued insisting the price on the shelf was a buck less than the scanner price, and was forced to bag groceries when her bagger quit on her to go take care of her cat. When her shift was up, Annie wanted to text Beth that she would be coming over but her phone was gone.

"So, I looked all around my check-out station, the employee break room, and the aisles I went to, but it wasn't there. But anyway, can I borrow your computer to log into my iCloud and erase everything?" Annie asked after she finished explaining it all. Beth said of course and walked with her over to her home office.

"Why don't you just turn on find my phone?" Beth asked as she leaned up against the wall.

"I don't have that turned on! Come on, Beth, after the things I've done, I need even fewer reasons for the authorities to track my every move," Annie replied exaggeratedly.

Beth rolled her eyes. "And you're sure you looked everywhere before you wipe it clean?" she questioned again.

"Yeah, I'm telling you, it's like the thing disappeared into thin air!" Annie cried.

And when things that were there suddenly aren't anymore, you don't just give up and accept that they're gone. You look for them everywhere you can think to find them. Marciella told Beth that Mick and a few other guys quietly took away Rio's body and brought it to an unmarked grave in the woods to bury it. She told her that they couldn't just have funerals in the public view because if other gangs knew that their leader had fallen, it would make them a very easy target for attacks. The logical conclusion was that only four people in the world knew what caused Rio's death, and only Rio's family knew where the body was. If they were not already, the cops and the FBI would probably start looking for Rio very soon. They would start looking at her because she told the FBI she had a love affair with him and they had strong suspicions she was involved in illicit affairs with him too. They would start looking at the people he ran with everyday, at the mother of his child, at his own mother, at the bars and restaurants he frequented...

"Earth to Beth," Annie snapped her fingers in Beth's face a few times when Beth had apparently got in her head with her thoughts and wasn't listening to Annie. "I asked if you finally decided if you were down with Marciella's proposal? About leading the gang?" she repeated, and Beth nodded. "Wow... So, what's your first point of business, chief?" Annie asked.

"I'm gonna shut it all down," Beth replied simply then walked away back to her kitchen to fix herself and Annie something to eat. Dean had the kids at his mom's for the night, Ben was at Gregg's, and Ruby was dealing with some school drama from Sara, so it was just the sisters for the night.

"Wait, what?" Annie shouted, scuttling along behind her big sister. Beth shared her worries about being watched by the authorities in regards to Rio's sudden disappearance. "Okay, but, but Fitz is like, trained in this kind of stuff. Who knows how many people he's taken out? There's no way that it's going to come back to us," Annie tried soothing Beth in her frazzled state as she paced back and forth while she waited for a pot of water to boil.

"But that's not it, Annie. They don't even know he's dead. They'll never find the body. They'll just be looking for him, to find out what he could be doing, and why he's hiding. It's not just us. They'll be looking at Mick and the rest of the gang. They'll be looking at Marciella, Rhea, and Marcus. How am I supposed to run a crime organization if they're gonna start watching everyone that's involved 24/7? Marciella even said I have to stop printing so once the money we have runs out, we'll have nothing!" Beth cried as she shook her fists up and down in frustration while Annie pleaded with her to calm down so they could think of something. "No, we should have never done this. We're in bigger shit than we were before Annie. We can't make it in prison!" Beth continued fuming.

"Beth, please! You can't think when you're acting like this. Get a fucking grip!" Annie yelled more forcefully now, getting Beth to stop in her tracks, huff, and fold her arms against her chest.

"Do not tell me to get a grip, Annie," Beth said calmly and rationally while sending her sister a death glare.

"Okay, listen, maybe you don't have to shut it down. Maybe if you do a good enough job of it, you can just make it look like it's all shut down," Annie suggested, in an effort to at least get the ball rolling on ideas. "How do you put a bunch of gang members to work and rake in a lot of cash without the cops noticing?" she asked, watching as the metaphysical gears turned in Beth's head.

"I have to make it look like they're going straight," Beth commented as she bit her lip and opened the box of spaghetti to boil enough for two servings. "We have to find something to do about this without ever letting anyone find out what we're doing," she mumbled as she thought it over and over in her head. "Alright, I have an idea," she said excitedly, and Annie immediately shared in her excitement.

"Oh, I love it when you tell me your ideas before getting yourself in too deep to back out," Annie joked scornfully, but Beth paid no mind.

"Well, I'm not gonna print. There's no way we can get across the border unnoticed, so drugs are out of the question. We're gonna have to steal our money. And what kind of people can steal from other people without making them realize they've been stolen from in the first place?" Beth asked, trying to lead Annie to her answer.

"Payday lenders and bankers?" Annie answered sarcastically.

"Cleaning ladies!" Beth responded energetically. She knew it would be a hard sell to the gang, but after a bit of explanation, she felt like she could definitely convince them. Beth and Annie worked together to formulate the plan, and Beth discussed it with Marciella first, who seemed to think it was a good idea, if not very risky.

She reconvened with Mick, Bullet, and Demon at Marciella's house to explain it to them. She discovered that their real names were Michael, Bonifacio, and Daniel, and asked if she could call the last two by their first names. After she tried pronouncing them with the right accents on the vowels and she butchered them, they made a face at her and persuaded her into backing down. Bullet and Demon it was. They weren't immediately turned on by the idea, but particularly hated the suggestion that they had to trade in their expensive cars and pawn off all the jewelry they got for their wives and girlfriends to make it convincing that the gang had actually fallen apart after Rio disappeared. But, Beth's willingness to take on the majority of the brunt work to plan out the actual method of stealing and their lack of any other ideas that wouldn't immediately get them into hot water convinced them to go along with it.

They spent a couple days getting ready to put it into action. Beth went with Annie to Nancy's house because she wanted to spend more time with Ben. She even helped out a little with Dakota, while watching a movie with the family and casually looking out the window that overlooked the rest of Nancy's street to try keeping tabs on when people started getting back home from work. Beth, Ruby, and Annie also spent a few hours driving around neighborhoods in the middle of the day to keep track of lunch breaks. They had a notebook where they wrote down addresses, times, and the kinds of people who lived there. They visited a cleaning company to schedule a cleaning for 'Amy' and pick up some business cards. They got some fake company stickers printed to put on the side of Beth's van and a truck. Mick was the first person in the gang to get behind Beth, so he traded in his BMW for a cheap Ford pick-up truck. Beth and Ruby went around to various Goodwills in town to buy some scrubs to re-purpose as cleaning outfits. With Ruby in the car, Beth talked more about how the plan was unfolding in her head.

"I was thinking, maybe once we've gotten real good at it... We can start conning our way into hotels or offices, get an even bigger load of stuff. Then when the heat dies down, we can go back to printing. Maybe even go back to getting wrapping paper from Canada, get one of those big warehouses like Rio was managing when we first met," Beth said, desperate for Ruby's support.

"Okay... Maybe save the wishful thinking until after you successfully pull off robbing one house first," Ruby said. So, that's what Beth set her mind out to do. Ever the master at overthinking, Beth considered how she would react to every possible snag in the plan that she could think of. Beth picked up two guys and two women in her van, all dressed up in their scrubs, with cleaning supplies all loaded in her trunk. She met up at the house with Mick in his pick-up with another guy and some lawn care tools in the bed of his truck. The house belonged to a young couple, probably around early 30s, without any kids. One of the women came back at home late, at around 7:30 every day, wearing a suit. The other woman came back home at around 2:00 and left again sometime before 4:00, then back again at around 7:30 too. The gang got there at 1:30.

Beth took a deep breath as she parked her van in the drive-way. She took notice of the kids that were walking home from the bus stop out on the street. A man was jogging with his dog. The group went around to the trunk, collected bags and buckets full of cleaning supplies, and some brooms. They all put on cleaning gloves first, then Beth led them to the door. She took a quick look around the front porch, lifted the welcome mat and the plant pots to find a spare key, which she found underneath the top layer of soil of an orchid plant, which made her very glad she wouldn't have to pick the lock to get in. When she nodded back at Mick and his guys, they started unloading the mower and the string mower to get to work on the lawn. The rest of the group stepped inside a totally quiet house.

"Get cleaning... Natalia, come with me," Beth said as she walked into the house to find the rooms. The first door she opened was to a bathroom, then an office, then a guest bedroom, and then the couple's bedroom. The guest bedroom looked hardly lived in, nothing on the nightstands with the bed completely made including the duvet. The couple's bedroom was more messy.

"Come on," she said, allowing Natalia to go in first. Natalia opened a box atop the dresser which she discovered was a jewelry box. She immediately started taking the necklaces and earrings that were hanging on the hooks on the lid of the box, until Beth put her hand on her wrist to stop her. "Hey, the stuff she's put up on display, it's what she wears whenever she goes out somewhere nice. It's what she'll immediately notice if it's gone. Pick out stuff from the bottom of the box. Nothing with any engravings or something that looks particularly unique or special," Beth advised her.

"I know how to fuckin' steal shit," Natalia grumbled as she reluctantly put the necklaces and earrings back where they were, and picked up some other gold chains and rings at the bottom of the box. Beth went to the far side of the room and pulled open the door to the closet. There was something from 20-30 business suits there on one side and another smaller dresser filled with ties, pocket squares, and cuff links. Beth rubbed her fingers on the ties, almost half of them were silk. She turned one over in her hands and saw the name Robert Talbot embroidered on the back. She took three matching sets out and put them at the bottom of her bag underneath a few containers of lysol, and she rearranged the items in the drawer before shutting it. She took a look at the other side of the closet which had more casual and athleisure items hanging there. She picked out a pair of black Gucci pants, folded them neatly, put them in the bottom of the bag, and dropped the hanger behind the mini-dresser.

Beth walked back out and shut the door behind her. Natalia wasn't there, so she walked out to find her in the office. Beth took the bag out of her hands and placed it at the front of the room. "Start cleaning. Get a broom from the living room and start sweeping," Beth ordered, but she still started pulling open drawers. Beth put her hand on Natalia's wrist and again told her to go. "We only have 10 minutes left until someone gets back home," Beth said, and she finally left. Beth looked inside the desk drawers, most of them were just filled with paper, but the small one in the top right had pens inside. A few of them were engraved with the name of law firms and what she presumed was one of the women who lived in the house. She picked up one of the non-engraved wood finished ballpoint pens and put it at the bottom of the bag. After tidying up the desk and the bookshelf next to it, she walked back out and started to dust some of the furniture out in the front room. Within three minutes, someone was walking in the door. It was the same woman she saw while she was reconnoitering the neighborhood - a short, long-haired blond woman in a ponytail, leggings, and a 'Namaste' tank top. If Beth were to guess, she probably taught a yoga or Pilates class.

The woman was immediately on alert when she walked in and saw Beth. "What are you doing here?" she yelled loudly as she raised her fists up to fight.

"Whoa, we're cleaning! Just cleaning, we should be done in just a minute," Beth said, dropping the duster in her hands, and turning to face the woman. The woman then took a look to the left into her living room and she took notice of the others, also cleaning, wiping down surfaces, and swiffering the wooden floors.

"What? I... No, I haven't hired any maids or mowers... What-How did you get in my house?" she continued questioning, clearly still worried but putting her fists down when nobody approached her.

"Well, you told us to look for the spare key and let ourselves in. You're Amy, right? This is..." Beth trailed off as she removed her gloves to look in her pocket and pick out her phone. "This is 5472 Southeast 22nd Street, isn't it?" Beth read off her phone.

The woman leered her eyes at Beth, still in a defensive stance, she said, "Yeah... but I'm not Amy and I didn't hire any maids," again. Beth sighed and laughed.

"Oh my god, I think the client must have made a typo in the address. I didn't mean to scare you. Trust me, I'm sorry about the mistake," Beth explained, and finally, the woman relaxed her shoulders and exhaled loudly. Then she looked again at the people in her living room, looked at Beth, and back and forth two times. "Oh, don't worry. The company sends out a supervisor for each cleaning. I've been watching them," Beth said, noting how she still looked concerned at seeing brown people with tattoos in her living room. Marciella was right when she said having Beth as the face of the operation would benefit them. "We'll just make this first cleaning free to make up for our mistake. Here, call us back next month to schedule your next cleaning. We're also partnered with a lawn care company," Beth said, reaching again into her pocket and handing her a business card for a real cleaning company.

"Okay... Okay, so you said you were almost finished?" the woman asked, taking the card and reading it. Beth went into the living room to tell them to finish up, then walked over to the bathroom to tell the man in there to finish too. Beth apologized again before they all gathered up their stuff and shuffled out. Beth waited until a day later to go to a shady pawnshop outside of Detroit with Natalia and Mick. They agreed, after a lot of convincing by Beth, to gather up a few of the expensive stuff they owned to trade in with the stolen stuff too - things that were engraved and could be traced back to them, to make it look like it was all theirs. They took three necklaces, four rings, two pairs of earrings, five sets of ties and cuff links, a pair of designer pants, and two heavy ballpoint pens to the shop. They walked out with four thousand dollars - over three thousand dollars worth of profit. It was just enough to persuade Mick and Natalia to do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from s2,ep9 of the 100. This is probably understood already but to make it perfectly clear, this is a total work of fiction and I do not endorse theft.


	3. Been crossed and lost and told no and I've come back, unshaken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth asserts her dominance over her people and comes up with a high-stakes, high-dollar scheme.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quickly becoming one of my favorite stories to write, it's so fun! I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am.

After the first con, more of 'Rio's' people decided to join Beth to get a cut of the profits and the action. They'd hit between 3-5 houses a day with Beth always supervising. Sometimes Annie and Ruby would come along to clean when they could escape their day jobs for an hour. Beth also got to know the rest of the gang. She even put together a schedule, so everyone would get a fair amount of hours in. She would withhold spots from people if they didn't do as she said. Traded in their cars or pawned off their own shit.

"Because gang members who are out of a job following the mysterious disappearance of their leader can't afford the payments on their BMWs, Benz, or Cadillacs if they're not committing crimes anymore. You either sell the lie that you hung up your life of crime to work for a cleaning company, or you get us caught. And I won't let you get us caught," she'd say so that people knew she meant business.

On the schedule was a list of who all would attend the cleaning and the other person who would take some loot. She would always take some on each con, but she also allowed one other person to take some too. She also made a schedule for when a different group of three people would go to one of 6 different pawn shops at the end of each day and sell the previous day's loot. At the end of each con, she would take the loot from her second and transferred it to the person who was on schedule to pawn the next day. She showed trust by allowing all of them to take it home overnight and keep it safe. She also had each of them keep tabs on each other to make sure everyone brought what they had to the shop each day. They'd all bring the money back to her and the next day, she would distribute it evenly among everyone that helped to sell the lie, and Marciella because everybody made clear that she deserved a cut too. Beth split her cut in three for her girls since she was getting more for supervising on each con. In no time at all, Elizabeth had turned the business of stealing jewels into a well-oiled machine. She thought to herself that Rio would be proud, even _hoped_ that he was, wherever he was. She thought herself special because she was able to con her way out of anything.

During one run, a woman had told her that she scheduled a cleaning for Thursday not today. "Very sorry, but we had to move somethings around because of scheduling issues. I hope that's okay?" During another, she noticed one of hers walking around with a necklace hanging out of his pockets, and she pulled it out to make a show of how she doesn't allow that kind of behavior in the interests of the clients who put their trust in us and allow us inside their homes, then gave the necklace back, fired him on the spot, and apologized profusely while they made their way out the door with the rest of the loot that was well hidden. During another, a man entered the house talking on the phone and walked right past her and up the stairs without even remarking on hers or any of the other cleaner's presence.

It all made sitting at her desk at Boland Bubbles in between runs, checking the figures on sales and scheduling deliveries, so very excruciatingly and painfully boring. She hadn't the time to explain to Dean why she wasn't spending as much time at Bubbles as usual. She just explained it away as having something to do with the kids. With her being so busy, supervising each run, making schedules, sorting cash, she asked Annie and Ruby for some assistance in picking the kids up from school and dropping them home or at their mother in law's or some extracurricular activity or at the park, which they were, of course, happy to do. Beth still spent time with the babies each morning they were at her house, she made them breakfast and packed them lunches with lovingly written notes, and each night they were at her house too, she forced them to eat their veggies and allowed them to have ice cream afterward. Danny and Kenny loved her, even more, when she let them stay up late on Fridays, past the time she even went to sleep and allowed them to watch some R-rated comedy movies where she knew a girl would take off her shirt.

It was all very easy and breezy until it wasn't. When a woman looked at the business card and said that wasn't the same company logo as the sticker on the van out front. She was the first person of 26 different houses to notice. She dropped it to the ground and hastily started digging in her purse when Natalia pulled out a gun from behind Beth, over her shoulder, and Bullet pulled out another one from a few feet away in the living room. She screamed, they both cocked their guns, and Beth screamed.

"Drop the guns," she ordered while the woman continued to look inside her purse but with her face pale white as a ghost and her vision going blurry, looking for her phone turned into an insurmountable task. Neither Natalia nor Bullet listened to Beth.

"Put. The purse. Down," Natalia ordered, forcefully pushing Beth out of the way so she could closer. Bullet also took some more steps. But in less than a second, Beth stood herself with her back against the woman's chest and facing Natalia's and Bullet's guns. Beth used herself as a shield while the woman started crying behind her.

"I said, drop the guns," Beth repeated again, putting her hands behind her to hold onto the woman's shaking arms. She stared harshly at both of them, unrelenting, bossy.

"She'll call the cops, River," Natalia said, her brows tightly furrowed and her hand steady despite the racing of her heartbeat.

"If you want to shoot her, shoot me first," Beth bargained, pausing as the glares continued and time stood still as well as every body in the room. Bullet took a sharp breath in and bit his lip as he reluctantly withdrew his gun and put it back in his waistband. "Put the gun away," Beth commanded once again to Natalia, who finally relented and followed Bullet's lead.

"Everyone out of the house, now! Leave the loot!" Beth yelled to get the attention of the people who were still fake cleaning in another room. Beth squeezed the woman's arms behind her as she walked her back against the wall of the hallway to give room for everyone to leave the house without exposing the woman again. In thirty seconds, everyone left and there were just two bags sitting next to them.

Beth finally pushed off of her and stood to face her. She continued crying, but dropped her purse to wipe her eyes. She was much more relieved now by the absence of guns in her face. "What- what are you doing here?" she whimpered as she kept shaking.

"I need you to let me drive away and never tell the cops you saw me here," Beth urged as she leaned over slightly to look her in the face.

"Are you... Are you gonna hurt me?" she asked painfully, staring down and refusing to meet Beth's gaze. But Beth grabbed her arms and shook her, effectively encouraging her to look Beth in the eyes.

"I will _never_ let them hurt you," Beth promised seriously. "Debbie," she said, recalling the name on an engraved ring she saw in her bedroom. "I'm dead serious. 1000 every week at your front door to never tell another person about this," she offered. "Just for you. Don't tell your husband or your kids or your brothers or your sisters or your parents or your friends. It's 4 grand a month for you to spend on yourself and no one else. All for you. Don't you deserve it, Deb?" she proposed.

Debbie sniffled a bit before slowly nodding her head, saying yes, and just begging her to go before changing her mind. Beth made quick work of pulling most of the loot out of the bags and returning it to her. She made sure to leave a diamond bracelet in there, knowing that after this, Debbie wouldn't even go looking for it. She also pulled out her wallet and put 10 hundred dollar bills next to the loot on top of the shoe rack at the front of the house. She put her hand on Debbie's arm as a show of comfort before leaving and stomping to the van.

Beth loaded the bags into the back, then got upfront and immediately yelled. "Have you been bringing guns to every house?!" she screamed while putting the keys in the ignition and pulling out of the driveway. When no one answered, she yelled again. "Goddammit! Fuck! I told EVERYONE that we weren't going to do that anymore! You are DONE killing innocent people!" she shouted.

"We do what we have to do to protect ourselves, Elizabeth!" Bullet growled back at her, but she wasn't having it.

"Bullshit! I could have talked our way out of that if it wasn't for you and Natalia pulling your fucking guns out at her! Now all we got out of that house is a diamond bracelet!" she yelled, which started Natalia fuming too.

"What?! You returned her shit? A diamond bracelet is only worth like 400 bucks, that's not even 70 bucks a pop for each of us for this run!" Natalia yelled from the back seat.

"No, you and Bullet will get nothing for this! You should've thought about that before pulling your fucking gun on an innocent middle-aged woman, Natalia!" Beth fumed.

"Fuck you, Beth!" Natalia shouted as she kicked Bullet's seat in front of her.

"I am not arguing about this with anyone. If anybody brings a gun on a run again, you're getting off the schedule for a month and you won't get a single cut. I'm what's making this shit happen. You couldn't pull any of this off if I wasn't there to talk to the homeowners to make it look like a bunch of inner-city hoodlums AREN'T there to steal from them. And Rio's not the boss of you anymore, I fucking am. I will not put up with anyone of you not fucking listening to me and not respecting me for making you all this fucking money. Tell the others too," Beth said, a finality to her tone that none of them were willing to challenge. The rest of the ride as she dropped them all back home was dead silent as Beth drove quietly, still very enraged. While Natalia and Bullet were still very much pissed off since she yelled directly at them and took away their cuts, everyone else in the van felt a strange sense of admiration for the woman in the front seat who was willing to curse out and take money from bigger and stronger people than her whom she knew had guns.

Following that, Beth took notice of a much greater willingness, among all of them, to listen to her more, without her having to repeat herself or beg. It generally made the operation run a whole lot smoother and made everyone happier. Beth had eventually been made aware of the gang's debts and who she'd have to deliver a cut to every month, which led to her discovering that almost 15% of the total profits after three weeks had to be contributed to paying back debts. First, she cursed out Mick for not telling her sooner, but then Mick explained he tried hard to cancel the debts in ways that Beth would not have approved of and tried to convince the people they owed that they weren't operating anymore, but they didn't care. Second, she got everyone to contribute their fair share to the debt payments, except for the 4k a month for Debbie which she decided to take on on her own, and she also paid Ruby and Annie's debts for them since she was getting bigger cuts for attending each cleaning run. So, the debts were paid until next month - Mick went to deliver and helped Beth take account of how much in total was still owed.

Beth had even had taken the chance to socialize with and get to know her people at one of Marciella's cook-outs. She brought Annie with her too and after a few tequila shots, they both got quite comfortable chatting with people, dancing like nobody was watching, and stuffing themselves full of Marciella's tortillas and carne asada. Annie had even started flirting with one of the single guys named Leo, nicknamed Fuego. Meanwhile, Beth was sitting in an outdoor lounge chair with a corona in her hand while she chatted with Natalia and Mick about stories of what the gang has been through in the past. Somehow the conversation had turned into a discussion of their first impressions of Beth.

Mick, of course, had been there with Rio the first time that they met. "I thought you were a dumbass," he said, making Beth's eyes go wide but she withheld expressing her offense at the statement, because she had asked after all. "I mean, how do you walk out of a grocery store with half a mil and you don't figure out it's more than you bargained for 'til you bring it back home and count it? Like how'd you not realize it at the store?" Mick explained further.

"Until then, I'd never held more than five thousand dollars worth of hard cash in my hands at one time. I'd also never robbed anything before, so I was really out of my depth," Beth explained with a laugh, then tipped her head towards Natalia and asked her about her first impression.

Natalia had first seen her at the warehouse when she, Annie, and Ruby came to deliver wrapping paper. "You just looked like a basic bitch to me," Natalia laughed. "But I was definitely wrong about you, River," she said, smiling and poking fun at Beth's chosen cover name. Beth really enjoyed getting to spend some time with her gang friends like this. Beth particularly enjoyed detailing all the heists to Marciella, who always gave an outpouring of congratulations.

She was flying high. Even put down half the money for a security deposit on a new apartment for her kids and ex-husband. The next major turning point came when she, Mick, and Fuego were at City Pawn. Mick and Leo already traded in everything they had with the shop owner, Donny. Beth was the last one up and the others stood by the door waiting for her to finish.

"Hey, you think I haven't noticed, huh?" Donny whispered to Beth as he surveyed all her items she presented on the glass counter.

"Excuse me?" Beth questioned nonchalantly.

"This is the third time in the past month and a half that you've come into my shop. You comin' in with different Mexicans each times, same with them. I don't know what y'all are doing to get all this shit, but you know as well as I do, the cops are gonna catch on and I _will_ talk. That is, unless you make it easier for me to bear the risk. Tell the big guy I want a discount," Donny continued whispering and pointed his chin over in Mick's direction.

Beth clenched her jaw and blinked her eyes at Donny as she took a deep breath. "And why would I tell him, exactly?" she wondered softly.

"Tell whoever's in charge of you then. The point is I'm not going down for this shit," Donny said, now louder and more forcefully. Mick slowly approached when he heard what was going on and stood intimidatingly at Beth's side.

"There a problem, boss?" he asked, glancing into Beth's eyes, then at Donny, and back at her.

"There might be," she said cryptically, staring at Donny as the truth donned upon his face. "You said you wanted a discount?" she asked Donny.

"Yeah," he said, weakly at first, then clearing his throat and trying again. "I buy from you for less. Increasing my profit margin," he explained. Beth hadn't even spent a moment considering it because she knew this would happen eventually, and planned for it too.

"And decreasing my profit margin... I won't be nickled and dimed here, Donny," she spoke calmly but in a way that still provoked fright.

"Th-then, I guess I won't have any reason to stay quiet," he croaked, squeezing the countertop until he felt his knuckles turn white. Beth looked down at his hands. As if he was frozen by fear, he didn't even make a move to buzz the alarm.

"Donny, you're insured here, aren't you?" Beth knew the answer but the question wasn't for her.

"Yeah, but once it's sold it's the customer's problem," he replied, on autopilot because it's the same thing he said to every customer who wanted to get expensive jewelry or tvs insured. But then, the wheels started turning, and he thought he might have had some idea of what Beth was getting onto.

"Let's chat tomorrow to iron out the details. Stein Park. 4pm. Got it?" she suggested, and Donny nodded his head. Then Beth started picking back up the items she left on the counter. "You know what, I think I'll just hold onto these a little longer," she said casually, putting the items back in her bag. "Thanks for your time!" she said cheerfully as she turned around and walked out the shop with Mick and Leo following behind her in a row.

Beth brought Jane with her to the park and sat on the bench watching her climb the monkey bars. As naive as her gang friends might have predicted her to be, she knew that this was the exact kind of situation where you might need some manpower. And when she had a group of over 20 loyal people willing to provide that for her, she wasn't stupid enough to come alone. She hoped, for Donny's sake, that he wasn't stupid enough to pull something on her in the middle of children's playground during daylight hours, but she wouldn't take any chances. Mick and Jordan also brought their kids and stood some ten feet away from Beth. They kept their eyes on their daughters as they played soccer and on Beth as she waited for Donny. When he got there, Mick walked over to a spot closer to Donny's car once he sat down next to Beth and Jordan stayed where they were. Beth started with pleasantries, "hi, how've you been?" but Donny didn't answer.

"I thought about what you said... Look, it's impossible. The moment I file a claim that insurance company's gonna be so far up my ass I won't even be able to shit right. I'm not gonna taken down for insurance fraud. It's a discount or I talk," Donny babbled quietly, shaking his leg rapidly.

"Come on, Donny. Let's work together. Scratch each other's backs, right?" Beth appealed softly, but it only made Donny all the more frazzled.

"You're a crazy bitch for even thinking about that. How are we ever gonna pull that off? Agree to the discount," Donny begged.

"Let's say I agree to a discount. I won't give you over 20 percent, so that's what? Uh, a 2000 dollar profit increase for you every month. We do what I say and you can get... Well, how much is all the jewelry in your store worth?" Beth continued teasingly.

"You're fucking insane," he said under his breath. "If you're not gonna agree to a discount, then I'm leaving," he swore as he made a move to stand up.

"Look over by your car. I have two people there waiting to convince you, and you could probably guess that they won't be as polite to you as I am," Beth cautioned. "So, let's keep talking. We work together and it means a big payout for us both. If you didn't want to consider it, then I'm sure that you would've already talked, right? But you're here, so it means you didn't. If you're unwilling to work with me, I'm sorry to say that I'll have to find another way to take care of this little problem. So, Donny, are we partners?" Beth reiterated again, watching Donny out of the corner of her eye as she continued shaking and rubbed his hand over his hair nervously.

"Fine... Fine, fuck. If I can think of something," Donny answered frantically.

"Think hard, Donny. I'll be by again next week," she vowed, then waited silently for him to go, but he stayed where he was, still shaking his leg, which was really starting to annoy her. "You should go now," she implored, which finally influenced him to get up and go, and Beth nodded her head at Mick and Jordan to let him go without interruption.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from "Lost in the Echo" by Linkin Park


	4. I'm only a crack in this castle of glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth makes a tough decision for the good of her people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning that this chapter does contain a murder. It's not very graphic or detailed, but there are descriptions of blood. In case that makes you squeamish, I tried making up for it by leaving you a present at the end. Please enjoy the story! Stay tuned for more story coming soon.

Nothing bothered Beth more than hearing Rio's voice in her head saying that she had to get her house in order while knowing he was right. It was easy enough not to use violence during home thefts because Beth only had to talk to the homeowners for a minute maybe three tops before they could all quietly leave. But planning to rob a pawn shop with the help of the pawn shop's owner was proving to be much more difficult than she could have imagined. Every half-baked plan that Donny could come up with was garbage. If he didn't arm the alarm system before closing shop for the night, then the insurance company wouldn't pay out and he wouldn't be in and he would talk. If he cut the cameras, the same thing. If he didn't file a police report, the same thing. Then, there was the problem with finding out how to unload jewelry that Donny said was valued at over $700k and turn it all into cash. With that much loot, every pawn shop owner in Detroit would know it was stolen and that wouldn't even be an option because the police would be looking all over Detroit for the jewels. Even if they left town to sell, it was still highly unlikely that any DPD officer worth his salt would discover a pattern of pawn shop sales that led right back to Beth and her people.

And, even if they were able to manage the great jewel heist they had planned, Beth didn't see a way around Donny coming back a few months later and jeopardizing the enterprise when he ran out of all the insurance money. If anyone else in the gang had an issue with the proposal, they were keeping it to themselves. Some bet must have been going around for when she would relent and realize the stupidity of the plan, Beth guessed. It would be easier to rob a bank and not get caught. Donny would always talk. Beth would always get screwed. None of the simulations Beth ran in her head came out any different. She spoke with Mick about it because there was never any bullshit with him.

"We gotta cut him loose, boss," Mick advised. Beth supposed the metaphor made it easier to say, by turning it into something less than what it was.

"I've told you, over and over again, that that wasn't something I was willing to do," Beth said tiredly.

Mick rolled his eyes and clenched his fists. "You know what your problem is, Elizabeth?" he inquired, making her look at him all offended and angry but she nodded her head regardless, urging him to continue. "You still think you're the good girl in all this. Just because you told us not to take guns during these cons. As if you're not still breaking into people's homes. Taking their shit. Lying to their faces. As if it's not the color of your skin that allows you to do it all without any consequences. You thought you changed us. You thought you found an ethical way to gangbanging. I've had to live with the shit I've done for 24 years. I was 15 when I killed someone for the first time. I'd love to tell you I've done it all for good reasons, like I did it to protect my family or someone I loved. But I've killed for money, territory, power, and to stay my ass out of prison. I don't pretend to be a good person. You need to start being honest with yourself about how much longer you can keep pretending to be good," Mick elaborated, receiving a petulant look from Beth.

"Okay, I-I've stolen, but there are lines I won't cross. _I_ have never killed someone," Beth argued, stressing emphasis on the 'I'.

"Haven't you?" Mick questioned with a raised eyebrow. "Bottom line is, if you force us to go through this heist, and we go down, we ain't protecting you. The plan's fucking stupid. This isn't about a thrill for us. We do it because it's like a job to us. You make us some money, and we like you, but you ain't family, Elizabeth. Not like Rio was," Mick said, then left her to think about it and make up her mind about what was the best way to proceed.

In a last-ditch effort, because she really didn't want Ruby and Annie involved in this anymore than they absolutely needed to be, she brought the girls together to brainstorm ideas for how to make it work. Each road converged into one path. If they were caught during the robbery, if Donny didn't get his insurance money, if they were caught pawning off the jewelry if they couldn't find someone to take it... They would always end up broke and in prison. Beth thought that she had worked too hard getting the current schemes in order to throw it all way for a plan that was a long-shot at best, but most likely, pretty impossible. She just put down a security deposit. Ben just started taking puberty blockers. Sara just started talking about college. Beth shifted the goal to finding a way to justify keeping Donny alive when all he would do is jeopardize her business and her life of freedom. That was about as hard to do as trying to find a foolproof method of stealing from a pawn shop owner who knows you've been pawning stolen stuff and knows what your face looks like.

The truth was that Beth was, once again, out of her depth. She never led a crime organization before. She never worked with a group of over twenty people to commit crimes and make money off it. She never has had to deal with anything like this before because, for better or worse, Rio was always around to 'take care' of things like this for her. He had Turner and Lucy killed because Beth couldn't do it. Thinking back on it, her life probably would have been a lot easier if he also took care of Mary Pat for her as he insisted. This wasn't Beth's area of expertise, so she had to listen to Mick and do what Rio would do.

It happened the next day. A Wednesday. The pawn shop closed at 6, but Donny would leave a bit after 8 because he had to take care of inventory, clean, and check records. Beth had Mick, Jordan, and Demon pick her up in a black cargo van. Jordan drove the van into the parking lot just as Beth watched Donny, through the windows, head to the rear exit of the shop. He parked the van for a brief second while Mick and Demon grabbed Donny and put a bag over his head before pushing him into the back of the van. Demon took the keys from his hands and went back to lock the door, then ran back into the van so that Jordan could drive away. They drove for almost 30 minutes while Beth lamented to Donny about how much she didn't want to do this, but that he wasn't giving her any other good choices. Donny swore he wouldn't talk, begged for the sake of his family. Beth explained that she had a family too, that her people all had their own families, that she was just doing what she thought was best for them, that there was only one way to make certain that Donny wouldn't talk. When they got to a secluded location at the edge of a wooded area with no other cars or people around, Beth did what had to be done. It didn't feel right to do, but it still felt less right to pin the act on someone else. She was their leader and she had to take responsibility for this.

When it was done, Mick and Demon threw the body out, careful not to get any of his blood on their gloves. On the way back, Demon took charge of cleaning up the splatters in the van. None of them mentioned how Beth couldn't look Donny in the face, how long she hesitated in between the first bullet and the rest, or how she kept shaking even long after she was done. But Mick put his hand upon her shoulder as a way to embrace her.

"How do you live with it?" Beth asked, turning to face Mick, as tears stung at her eyes and flowed fast down her face. She tried not to think about how blood poured down in buckets down the sides of the bag over Donny's head, or how he kept begging all the way through the end. A part of her was hoping for a deep, complex answer from Mick, one that would solve all her problems, take away the pain and the grief and the remorse and the misery. It was about more than just Donny, Mick and Beth both knew that, it was about that rotten egg from before, it was about Lucy, but most of all, it was all about Rio. She felt him inside of her, crawling his way out of where he had nestled himself in her brain, making himself known all over again, and placed himself in Donny instead. She saw him in the seconds before she pulled the trigger, leering and smiling at her like she was the most important person in the world. All this time, she was able to detach herself from the things she'd done. She was able to fool herself into thinking that she hadn't killed the man who she found one day sitting on her counter with a gun in his hands seeking money from her because she wasn't there to pull the trigger, because she didn't see his body hit the floor, because she didn't watch him take his last breath. But Fitz was nothing more than an extension of herself, another example of Beth never being able to take accountability for her bad deeds. When she pulled the trigger, she pulled it on Rio as much as she pulled it on Donny. Just as suddenly as he appeared, Rio vanished, when the bullet made contact. And Mick had nothing notable to say, nothing to wash away the sorrow and the sin.

"Try not to think about it. You'll be okay," he brushed it off. Jordan dropped the van in a parking lot before moving everyone out to his car so he could drop them back home. Beth shook as she walked all the way up her lawn to her front door. When she picked her keys out of her pockets, as she tried to unlock the door, they slipped right out of her hands and fell to the ground. Her breath was erratic as she leaned down to pick them back up and open her door. She went straight to the laundry room first, took off her overcoat, beanie, shirt, and jeans, chucked them in the washer with twice the normal amount of detergent and stain remover. Her arms and legs covered in goosebumps from the cool air in her house and her bare skin against it. She pulled herself up the stairs, into the hallway, opened her bedroom door, and stepped in. He was there again, at the far side of her room, standing in front of her window, illuminated by the light of streetlamps and the moon seeping in through her cracked window blinds, with his hands clasped together in front of him. Staring him in the face again, she pouted, sighed, and started weeping again, willing to do anything to get the visions to stop.

"Hey, mama," Rio hushed tenderly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Castle of Glass" by Linkin Park.


	5. Uneasy lie the heads that wear the crowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rio helps Beth confront the reality of what she's done and helps her see how to move past it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter I was waiting to write when I got the idea for this story. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Rio gave it ten seconds after he saw eyelids start to flutter because he knew coming to was extremely disorienting. There had to be enough time to recognize the zip-ties around the wrist and the pounding in the head originating from the spot where the handle of Rio's gun made violent contact. When Rio saw the dawning of reality on the face, he spoke. "Look at me," he ordered calmly, but then repeated aggressively when his command was not followed. When Rio made eye contact, Rio took notice of the sheer annoyance written all over the face. The anger at the plain inconvenience of it all.

"What do I look like?" Rio questioned provocatively, but he didn't receive an answer because, well, what is that supposed to mean, anyway? "Do I look like the type of dude that fucks around?" he asked again, more specifically, but was again met with petulant silence. "Do I look like I fuck around?" he asked, but this time coming closer to press the end of his gun against skin.

"No!" he screamed, staring Rio in the face as he willed the gun to be pointed away from his forehead. His final surrender of silence allowed Rio to pull his gun away and put it back in his waistband. Rio walked back over to his chair, just a few feet from Fitz's chair, and sat down. He'd knocked Fitz out by sneaking up on him from behind inside of his house, then dragged him over into a cargo van that Mick drove to an abandoned warehouse where Fitz would be stored until Rio could confront him without worrying that Fitz could get away from him.

"That's right, man. That's right, 'cuz I don't fuck around. So, here's what's gonna happen. I'ma ask you a few questions and you're gonna answer 'em unless you want a bullet in your head. You ain't gonna bullshit me or lie to me. You understand?" Rio said, gesturing with the gun in his hands and pointing it in the direction of Fitz's head. Fitz could tell by the tone of his voice, the vein in his neck, and the tight squeeze on the handle of the gun that he'd managed to make Rio really fucking angry. As if it wasn't evident already by Rio kidnapping him from his home.

"Yes, yes, I understand because I'm not an infant child," Fitz answered sarcastically, trying to pull at his restraints but he couldn't budge. It was then he realized that his legs were all tied against the legs of the chair using rope.

"Who are you?" Rio asked, curious to know and set on finding out. And Fitz wasn't about to go down for three women he didn't even know all that well and that mattered ultimately very little to him.

"My name is Fitz. I work at a package delivery company," he answered as he rolled his shoulders and tried to get free. He grunted as he continued trying to pull at the zip ties, but nothing worked. "Just let me go. Are you crazy?" Fitz asked impatiently.

"Yeah, maybe I am!" Rio yelled in a hoarse voice, reclaiming Fitz attention once the man realized that he wouldn't be let go until Rio was finished with him.

"Why you been following me around, man? You there where I eat. Where I play tennis. I even saw you trying to watch me take a fucking shower, man. You think I'm stupid? I never been followed before?" Rio continued interrogating him, leaned over in the chair and staring into Fitz with his brows furrowed. It was obvious that he was more than just a delivery guy. Even the FBI wasn't stupid enough to follow Rio to where they knew he met with the most prominent criminal defense attorney in Detroit. For some reason, this guy was after more than just some information about Rio's illicit affairs.

"What have you got them involved in?" Fitz asked, all curious wonder. Fitz had already got an inkling that this Rio wasn't exactly a model citizen, what with the neck tattoo, the gun, the willingness to kidnap, the people he hung around with, and how often he went into buildings and houses around town empty handed with two other guys, then walked out with boxes or duffel bags. That then made Rio understand that Fitz wasn't even fully aware of what he did, so he probably wasn't FBI, DPD, DEA, or anyone significant enough that he'd have to kill before letting him go from his restraints.

"They ask you to follow me around? What, are you some low-budget, amateur PI?" Rio further questioned. After he took notice that this guy was following him for more than a day, Rio got one of his own to look at him. He knew he'd been meeting with Elizabeth and the girls. He didn't know what half-baked, idiot plan they'd cooked up to try and get at him or what Fitz's involvement in it was, but he would find out.

"Yeah, yeah, they did. But I'm not a fucking PI," Fitz answered, waiting for the end of it so he could just go the fuck home. In exasperation, he started tapping his foot on the ground and hung his head, to not look at him any longer.

"You tell her, if she want something from me, she can put on her big girl panties and talk to me herself," Rio said, standing up from his chair and beginning to pace around the empty floor. Fitz could start to tell by the way Rio was acting--the pacing, rubbing his beard with his hand, clutching his other hand tightly against his body, and referring to a singular "her" even though they were talking about more than one person--that Rio was involved in more than just illegal dealings with at least one of them. "What are you talking to them for?" Rio inquired, trying to think up scenarios in his head for what this might be, but coming up at a loss.

"They took out a hit on you," Fitz admitted, following with his eyes as Rio continued to pace, but then stopped when Fitz finished what he said. Rio stood still and thought. It was crazy. But she was crazy, too. And it made sense as to why Fitz would be following him everywhere, even into the lockers at the tennis complex, looking for an opening to make a kill.

Rio started pacing again, thinking about what he wanted to do about this. He continued going around for a couple minutes trying to organize his thoughts. Fitz grew more and more exasperated, started begging Rio to met him go. "How much they paying you?" Rio asked angrily, not responding to his pleas to be let go.

"70K," Fitz answered, slumping down in the chair. Rio knew that she couldn't be making that much money that quick, unless she was stealing from him again or spending several hours a day printing.

"I'll pay you another 70k," Rio offered.

"Alright, it's done. I'll tell them I had a crisis of conscience and decided to give up the rifle. Are we done here?" Fitz asked exasperatedly.

"No. You're gonna tell her you did it. You had a schedule or something?" Rio asked, and Fitz told him it was supposed to happen next Thursday. "Thursday, then. You tell her it's done. You'll get your money tomorrow. I'll leave it in your garage," Rio decided, taking out a pocket knife to cut the zip ties off of him. "And quit following me, man," Rio ordered as he left the warehouse and left Fitz to find his own way back home.

In the next couple of days, Rio explained his plan to his mom and Mick, and told them to tell the rest of the gang. He also told Rhea, who chewed him out extensively for making Marcus have to lie about his daddy being dead when he was just going on vacation to teach someone a lesson. But Marcus was smart, and he listened to his parents, so Rio knew that Marcus wasn't going to give him away. After giving Rhea enough money to support her and Marcus for a couple months, she was more willing to go along with the idea, even though it was absolutely ridiculous in her opinion. Rhea made him promise to come back after two months, not to let it drag on too long, because Marcus was going to miss him too much, and he agreed.

On Wednesday night, Rio drove three hours down to Fort Wayne to get on a red-eye flight to Long Beach Airport. When he landed, he picked up a rental car, went to the first vacant motel he could find, and slept. In the morning, he'd go down to the boardwalk, buy a surfboard and a wet suit, walk onto the beach, and sit in peace watching the waves as they crashed onto the shore.

"Hey, mama," Rio said once he saw Beth walk in her room, naked except for her underwear. When he spoke, her eyes expressed a hint of fright, a bit of amazement, a sliver of anger. As she walked towards him, he dropped his hands to his sides and waited for her. When she got closer, she felt his body warmth, saw his shadow behind him on the window blinds, looked at every detail of the tattoo on his neck and the hair on his face and his dark brown eyes. She raised her hands to his chest and his face where she was just inches from him, rubbed her fingers on his shirt collar, and stroked his cheek. He simply watched her to see how she would react, how the realization hit her.

She stopped crying, but her cheeks were still damp and she was still reeling from what she did just an hour earlier. With Rio standing before her, all she wanted to do was let go of all the sadness and frustration, to put it behind her for even just a moment. She put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him down, slotted her nose right against his, felt his breathing against her lips. He lifted his hands up to her hips, dug his thumbs into her skin, and she moved the few millimeters forward to connect her lips to his. Her lips trembled as she kissed him, breathing harshly, a frenetic energy buzzed in between them and she slid her other hand up his cheek around to his ear. She grasped him around the back of his head to prevent him from leaving her again. He matched her energy as her kissed her back, pulling her into him until her body was pressed up firmly against him. He hooked his thumbs under the waistband of her panties, wanting to rip them off her, unhook her bra, see her in all her vulnerability and defenselessness. But he pushed her away.

"We need to talk," he said, removing his hands from her waist and stepping back.

"We'll talk later," she whispered breathlessly, leaning back into him and trying to unbutton his shirt.

"Hey, no," he whispered, pushing her back again.

"Please. Please, I need you, I need you, Rio, I need you," she begged quietly, reaching out to wrap her arms around his neck and he accepted her embrace, wrapped his arms tightly around her, trying to warm her as he felt her shivering. Then she started kissing his neck again, sending shivers down his spine.

"You doing this right now 'cuz you want me or 'cuz you feel bad?" he whispered into her ear, making her freeze.

"Why? Why does it matter?" she asked.

"It matters, Elizabeth. Not gonna take advantage of you like this," he said quietly, so finally, she pulled her lips away from him and started sobbing with her forehead pressed again his shoulder. "You're cold. Put some clothes on," he encouraged, letting go of her so she could, looking away as she stripped off her underwear. When she had on a set of pajamas, she got up on her bed and sat with her knees against her chest.

"I killed him... I held the gun in my hand and I pulled the trigger. I blew his brains out, to make sure he wouldn't survive, while he was begging me not to..." she cried, hugging her knees and whimpering softly. He took his shoes off and walked over to her, sat down next to her.

"None of us started out wanting to hurt people that don't deserve it. But when it's you or them, you're robbed of any other choice. Each part of you you thought was good... gets broken down piece by piece until you're forced to realize that if you want to survive, you have to sacrifice something. Like it or not. You do what you have to and you just live with it until you die," Rio explained, watching as Beth broke apart and sobbed, mourning the death of who she once was and who she will never be again. Her chest heaved and she screamed into the heavy air in her bedroom, unable to comprehend how she could live with herself after doing something so sinful for her own benefit. Rio scooted closer to her until he could hold her and drag her down to lay on her back. Beth wrapped her arms around him too and laid her head on his shoulder until she had no tears left to cry and she fell asleep.

In the morning, she woke up feeling tired, a little dead inside, with red splotches on her face and an aching chest. When she came back into the bedroom after washing her face in her bathroom sink, Rio was already awake. He saw the look on her face, questioning.

"I faked it," he said, answering the main question on her mind. "I paid off your hitman. Snuck away at night. Got on a flight to California and didn't think about washing money or running from the cops for two months," he continued.

The look changed to betrayal. "Why? Why would you do that? Who knew about this?" she questioned angrily, flaring her nostrils and stomping her foot.

"My mom. Rhea. Marcus. All my people. Just you and your girls didn't. Elizabeth, you wanted to have it all, right? You wanted the money. The power. The kingdom. You got it. What you think of it now, huh? Is it easy?" he asked back, more forcefully and intimidating than her. She didn't answer him, instead stood there unable to think of what to say or how to move on. "And, while we're talking explanations, tell me why you paid someone to shoot me in the fucking head with a sniper rifle," he said aggressively.

Beth straightened her shoulders and prepared herself to fight him. "You robbed me of any other choice. I thought you were gonna end up killing me. It was me. Or you. And I didn't choose you," she said, expressing confidence in her answer and unwavering in her resolve to defend herself against him.

"Goddammit, Elizabeth," he cursed under his breath, taking a moment to think and overthink about what he planned to say next. "I have feelings for you," he admitted, unable to look her in the face, filled with a sense of shame as she walked forward and sat down on the edge of the bed a less than two feet away from him.

"You have _feelings_ for me? Scaring me, intimidating me, and threatening me are terrible ways of showing it," she spit out sadly, unable to look him in the face either as she sniffled and willed herself not to cry.

"You think I wanted it that way? I'm not some dude you met in high school, fell in love, and you'll be together forever, and I never will be. I am who I am, and you're not the first person who wanted to take me down... but you're the only one left alive. My gang lost more respect for me each day that I let you off. I didn't have a choice before. But we have another choice now... They're my people, Elizabeth. My family. My responsibility. I'm going back to lead them and we can do it together. You're ready for it now," Rio said encouragingly, silently begging her to join him, to let him be a part of her life like he so desperately craves.

And he knew she would say yes. All those times she kept coming back to him. It wasn't even just about the money, it was about the thrill, about taking back control of her life, about feeling powerful and being _seen_ as more than just a mother of four. She loved her kids, but she hated being a mother, she hated being thought of as someone incapable of supporting herself, someone who lived just for her kids. The past couple of months, despite all the work, the risk, and the tough decisions, meant proving to herself and everyone else that Beth doesn't fuck around.

"Fine," she said under her breath, knowing that after last night, there was absolutely no turning back anyway. "How are we going to keep working together? After everything..." she questioned, finally turning in his direction to look at him, all vulnerable and defenseless, laying in her bed, bathed in the sunlight coming through the blinds.

"Start by you never lying to me again, and me not threatening you anymore," Rio answered, hint of sarcasm but promising, always true to his word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by Act 3, Scene 1 of King Henry IV, Part Two written by Shakespeare.


	6. They say the world was built for two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Rio negotiate two deals to minimize some risks to their business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im so happy to see more people coming to read the story!! Trust me I missed having Rio as a part of it as much as you did!! Hes back baby!!

Beth certainly had spunk. With a little push, she could command respect. She wasn't half bad at thinking on her feet and, given time, she did come up with great ideas. What Rio had that she lacked the most were simply connections. Mick had been keeping Rio informed through text messages about everything that was going on with the gang and with Elizabeth while he was gone. After what happened with Donny, he had to figure out a new way to unload the loot without having to deal with pesky pawn shop owners that might get greedy and force Beth into making more hard decisions than she could manage all at once. So, he told her to stop pawning until they could go and meet with a friend or rather, an associate, because Rio had no friends outside of the gang except for, maybe, Annie and Ruby, in some sense of the word. The guy, named Morrison, was the guy you went to if you needed fake passports, credit cards, IDs, or unregistered guns. Morrison and his people supplied gang members from all around the Midwest with whatever they needed. It seemed like a promising opportunity. But there was just one thing.

"Why am I going with you exactly?" Beth asked again when Rio picked her up late in the afternoon on a Friday.

"Would you rather not be there when I sell all the shit you've stolen this past week?" Rio asked with a raised eyebrow, to which Beth scoffed. Sure, she appreciated being treated as a real equal and getting to be in the room where it happens. Beth supposed this would be good for them. An opportunity to re-build, or build for the first time, a healthy level of trust that was absolutely needed between business partners such as themselves. But a part of her thought that Rio had ulterior motives for asking her to come along when he usually went with Mick and Mr. Cisco on these types of adventures. They had to drive all the way to Cleveland to meet up with Morrison.

"What did you do in California when you were gone?" Beth asked, letting her curiosity get the best of her as Rio cruised down the highway.

"Better question is what you did in Motown while I was gone..." Rio trailed off, not taking his eyes of the road, though he would have loved to see Beth squirm.

"Were you with someone?" she asked quietly, almost secretively, making Rio smile big, all teeth bared, crinkles at the corner of his eyes. She knew she shouldn't have asked because she knew she'd never get a straight answer, but she really wanted to know. The truth was that not a day went by that Rio didn't think of Beth, what he left behind, and he found himself getting sick at how twisted and demented their relationship had become. When he started thinking of getting old, he thought that it might be better to do it with her, instead of doing it alone. And he knew she wasn't asking out of innocent curiosity. It gave him a sense of hope.

"Yeah," he said, feeling the change in the car's atmosphere, Beth's disappointment. "I met this dog. On the beach. Yeah, she was a stray, and after a few days, she started waiting for me in the same spot on the sand. She's probably waiting for me now," Rio elaborated, which made Beth feel such intense sadness.

"You left her behind? You are really evil..." Beth mumbled quietly and sniffled, staring out the window imagining a dog sitting on the shore waiting for Rio to come give her food but he never comes.

"Why would I bring her to Cleveland? She'll be fine with Rhea 'till morning. Marcus'll keep her company," Rio explained further, a smirk on his lips as he remembered just how easy it was to play with Beth's emotions.

Realizing that he hadn't left the dog in California, she quickly wiped at the single tear drop that had formed itself at the corner of her eye and straightened her back against the seat of the car. "We need to talk about what we're going to do with you," she commented as she stared out the window.

"What do you wanna do with me, Elizabeth?" Rio asked coyly, shifting one hand up on the wheel and settling the other down in his lap. "Cute. The cleaning business worked because it started after you left. Made it seem like the people who work for you decided to give up their lives of crime when their leader disappeared. If the cops haven't already noticed your back, they probably will soon. They'll think we're doing something shady..." Beth hushed, shifting her eyes down to where she saw movement in his lap, then back up to the road in front of her.

"That's why we're going to see Morrison. Get ourselves a buyer so we don't have to rely on pawn shops around town," Rio brushed off Beth's worries.

"I was thinking you should get a day job. So they think you're not involved anymore," Beth suggested.

"What do you see me as?" Rio asked curiously, raising his eyebrow and glancing at her for a second.

"I don't know... Volunteer firefighter? Cook at a soup kitchen?" Beth said, imagining in her head what types of jobs a reformed criminal might go far.

"Yeah, that's cute, but all they'll ever see me as, is a gangster. Don't matter what I do. We just gotta stay low, stay smart, make sure we leave them no clues to find out what's really going on," Rio said. Beth furrowed her eyebrows, wondering if that was really true, not knowing what to say but that Rio was more than that. It just seemed to cheesy. Too on the nose. She bit her lip not to say anything, to keep it inside, well hidden. "What you gon' do when shit goes sideways? How you gon' flip your game?" he asked after a long silent pause where she said nothing.

"I haven't thought of that yet," Beth admitted.

"Good leader always plans ahead," Rio advised, then said "maybe" when Beth asked if he had a plan.

They arrived at the meet-up location with two cases full of bracelets, rings, necklaces, and earrings, and a duffel bag full of designer clothes. Morrison mostly sold fake passports or guns, but it was like the kind of things you'd get at the check-out line in a superstore. Morrison would sell the jewelry or the clothes along with the usual stuff to customers that wanted to get their significant others something special, or he would distribute it to various pawn shops around the Midwest and Northeast. There was an established "no questions, no answers" policies with his customers surrounding why they needed an influx of new guns, or a credit card with 400k on it, or passports with young girls' names and faces on them, and Rio knew he'd be safe to unload all these stolen goods with him. The more difficult problem was getting a good deal on it.

Before they got out of the car, Rio reached inside his middle compartment and the glove compartment. He took out two guns and handed one to Beth. She looked at him with big eyes, questioning. "What do you want me to do with that?" she asked with a freightened look on her face.

"Protect yourself," he said nonchalantly, putting his gun in his waistband.

"From... From what? I thought you said you trusted this guy," she muttered, taking the gun and feeling the weight in her hand. It had a full clip, she also checked that the safety was on too.

"I do, but anything can happen. Come on, ma, it ain't like you never shot a gun before. We both know," he said dismissively before opening his door and getting out. Beth felt unsure about it, and it wasn't easy to determine whether she should trust a complete stranger or someone she knew well who also has threatened to kill her countless times. But she leaned towards the latter, after all, he did promise to stop. She put the gun in her waistband and got out of the car.

"Who's this?" Morrison asked immediately upon seeing Beth come out of the car. She didn't exactly look like his typical clientele, which put him on edge. Beth introduced herself and extended her hand out, but he just returned another cold stare. "I don't do business with people I don't know," he said warily.

"She's, uh... A trusted business partner. She's the reason for all the shit I'ma sell you today. You don't trust her, then trust me," Rio promised as he guided Morrison around to the trunk of his Benz. Morrison had someone else with him too, but Rio wouldn't comment on the fact that he didn't know him either. Beth looked over at him, worried and wondering why she came, but Rio looked completely confident, which gave her some comfort. Rio opened up the cases of jewelry, and Beth unzipped the duffel bag. Morrison carefully looked through all the clothes in the bag and his partner, apparently an appraiser, look at the jewelry with a magnifying glass. They spent a while looking through everything, and stepped aside to talk about it while Beth and Rio waited. When they came back, Morrison offered Rio 50k for it all and Beth immediately had something to say, though she felt nervous, she didn't want to get screwed over.

"50? This much stuff would sell for at least 65k if I pawned it. I could get 75k for it if I bargained hard enough. 50's too low," Beth argued, steeling her nerves for how Morrison would react.

He chuckled at her. "Let's call it the cost of added security 'cause you know the cops will never be able to trace this shit back to me if someone reports their shit stolen, which means I'll never have to tell them it was you that brought it to me. It's 50k or nothing, bitch. Choose," Morrison said, zipping the duffel bag back up and throwing it at her feet, making her take a dramatic step back. She looked back at him with her nostrils flared, and angry. She opened her mouth to respond, but Rio spoke before.

"She's right," he said, stepping back to be at her side and put his hand on her lower back in an effort to calm her, because they weren't going anywhere if Morrison got pissed off and drove away without taking any of their shit. "50's too low," Rio agreed. Morrison raised his eyebrow at him and scoffed, taking notice of the touch between Rio and Beth. Beth raised her arms, crossed them at her chest, and took a deep breath to relax her nerves.

"We'll be coming back to you on a regular basis, every two weeks, bringing you more stuff you can sell each time. We're good for it, and if you don't trust me, trust Rio. Or, you know, trust the 100 G's worth of gold, silver, diamonds, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton that's sitting in those cases and this duffel bag. Your friend here has told you how much it's all worth, right? That's just one week's worth of stuff. We don't have a lot we can do with it. But we know that you do," Beth reasoned with him, evoking confidence in her tone and her stance, then nudging the duffel bag back in his direction with her toe. It wasn't something that Morrison expected from her just upon first glance. She didn't seem like the type to argue with a big black guy that she knew dealt with criminals on a regular basis. Rio smirked at her, surprised himself at her boldness, feeling a sense of pride in her.

"I won't give you more than 60k for it. And I'll be expecting twice as much next time. If I don't get it, you won't get such a good deal again," Morrison responded, backing down but also hedging his bets. They all agreed to it, and Morrison had Rio come watch him count the money before they traded and parted ways. 

"You weren't gonna take it, right? 50k?" Beth questioned Rio in the car. 

"Negotiation's what I got you for, darling. You always been good at that," Rio complimented her, making her blush inadvertently. 

"Even if we go now, we're not getting back to Detroit 'till midnight," she pointed out after looking at the time on the panel in Rio's car. 

"I know," he said, driving them to a hotel, like he had planned. Beth stayed silent on the way, just following his lead, getting a feeling like this was part of his ulterior motive for bringing her. Rio introduced himself as Christian Kowalski, a Hilton Honors card carrying member, at the front desk in the lobby of the hotel. When the manager asked him what room he wanted, Rio asked for a double room and he booked it immediately, put it on his account. They took the walk together, side by side, into the elevator and up four floors to get to their room. Rio opened it first, walked to the far side of the room, tucked the bag of cash under the bed and set his gun on the desk. Beth followed in after him but stayed on the side of the room closest to the door, set her gun on the dresser. When Rio's eyes made contact with hers, he was smirking at her, looking deeply inside of her. 

"You are so obvious," she muttered, rolling her eyes but a smile nevertheless found itself on her face as she looked in between the two double beds in the room. If Rio asked for a single bed room, then Beth would have demanded a double bed room out of sheer annoyance with Rio's presumptiveness. But Rio knew that, because he knew her. 

"Come on, mama, it's been too long," he said in that deep, hoarse voice that turned her on, as he walked back across the room to meet her. She stayed still, let him come to her as he raised his hand to part her hair away from her forehead. "I'm sorry. For intimidating you so much," he spoke sincerely, staring into her blue eyes like she held secrets about the world that he was desparate to hear. She thought that his Californian getaway must have been really good for him. Hoped that she might be having a getaway soon herself. 

"It's okay," she whispered, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "I would've done the same thing if I were you... And I'm sorry, for trying to kill you, twice," she said, in a more joking tone but no less sincere than him. She was relieved that she didn't live with killing him. She was pleased. 

"Yeah, I would done the same thing if I was you, too," Rio responded with a genuine smile spreading on his face, too. 

When they met in the middle, they started slow, like they were just getting to know each other again, introducing themselves softly by nipping at each other lips, caressing each other's faces. But then Rio's cold hands started sliding under Beth's shirt and Beth's fingers started unbuckling Rio's belt, and all bets were off. They kissed each other with the kind of unwavering sexual desire that lovers felt after being apart for far too long. Beth gave into temptation as she moved her hand under Rio's boxers once his pants were out of the way enough and asked for him to fuck her. Rio succumbed to his feelings for her as he guided her down on top of the sheets while biting her neck and pulling moan after moan out of her. And the other bed was left out for the entire night. The morning after, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was thinking of writing a smut scene here but didn't want to make the chapter too long or subtract from the story. I was thinking maybe make this story a part of a collection/series and post a smut oneshot to accompany it. I also was building some ideas regarding Rio being alone in California that I could write to accompany this story as well. If you would be interested in either of the stories, smut or California, leave me a kudos, a comment, a sub, or a bookmark ❤ thank you all so much for reading!!  
> Chapter title comes from "Video Games" by Lana Del Rey.


	7. You're so many things.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth comes up with a new idea and basically asks Rio to go steady with her. (Spoiler: he does)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi thank you for bringing this fic to over 1000 hits, and for the amazing reception of "Please want me"!!! I really hope you're enjoying the story, when i started out writing it, I didn't think I'd be creating my own "universe" where multiple fics converge, its so fun to write this story. Anyway, please enjoy the next chapter!

In the weeks that followed, due to their new partnership with a secure buyer, Beth and the others started taking things that counted as a little more risky - some of the more high-dollar, really valuable items that people had in their closets and jewelry boxes. Rio wasn't very involved. He didn't take part in any cleaning or mowing because him and Beth thought he shouldn't been seen in public during daylight hours with his 'former' associates. Instead, he held himself responsible for delivering cash to people the gang owed and collecting debts from people who owed the gang. Rio, of course, was grateful for the extra time he could spend with Marcus and his new dog. He would see Beth a few times a week. They met in his bar while he played pool against Mick. Beth would come to him to show off everything they collected because hearing Rio praise her for being a good thief gave her good feelings. On the first night that she came to the bar, she brought with her a case of jewelry and an LV handbag. She'd never swiped a handbag before, but this house she took from had four matching bags in the closet, so she didn't think that it would be missed immediately. Rio opened the case, diamonds making his eyes gleam as he scanned over everything. They settled on a string of pearls, he reached out for them and rubbed them with his thumb before picking them out. 

With the necklace in his hands, he turned to face the object of his affection, raised the pearls up to her neck and gently latched them together. He unabashedly admired the way they sparkled on her, then lowered his eyes to her chest, and back up again to her wide, blue eyes.

"You should keep it, Elizabeth," he said quietly, pulling his lip against his teeth, thinking about her in those pearls in a different position.

Beth hummed softly before looking down, then bringing her hands up to the back of her neck to take them off. "I can't just take it for myself. This is for everyone," she said, smiling and feeling good under Rio's gaze. She put them back in their place and closed the jewelry case. Beth may be a thief, but she wouldn't steal from the people she cared about, not again. It made him, and Mick, happy to know. "But you can give me back the pearls I left for you any time now," she suggested.

"Yeah, they look gorgeous on you, but they were a gift, ma. I can loan 'em to you, but they mine now," he smirked at her, before glancing at Mick as a way of asking him to leave. Beth followed his eyes over to their friend, but she stopped him before he left.

"Wait, Mickey, stay for a sec?" she asked before asking the bartender for three bourbons. She slid into a booth, Mick slid in after her, and Rio sat across from them as the bartender brought over three glasses with a finger of bourbon each. "So, I'm trying to put together a plan for something big. What if we hit a ritzy hotel? We sneak in a few of our women, posing as housekeeping, and get them into the rich people suites, open up a few suitcases, get a load of stuff," she said quietly, wanting to get their input on the idea.

"Suburban homes are easy. How you gon' pull off a hotel?" Mick asked, knowing that she must have a more elaborate plan brewing.

"I was thinking about going to a hotel in Chicago because it's more touristy. We get a few people to spend some days at the hotel at different times to stake out the place. After that, we could get a bettet idea for how to proceed," Beth suggested, closely observing Rio and Mick's faces for what they thought. Mick shrugged and looked back at Rio for his response. Rio was apprehensive immediately but he didn't want to shut her down in front of Mick.

"Sure, we'll figure it out. Let's go get you those pearls, yeah?" Rio offered, standing up and putting his pool stick he left on the table back in the rack, as well as Mick's. Mick reset the balls while Beth waited for them to get done. Mick went on his way home and the other two drove to Beth's house to drop off the van before taking Rio's car back to his loft. Part of her was excited to go back to his place for the first time since they were back in a good spot in their relationship. Beth would finally get to meet the dog Rio told her about last week on the ride to Cleveland. But there was something that made her wary. 

"So, I could tell there was more you had to say about the idea," Beth said on the elevator ride up to Rio's floor. "Come on, tell me," she pushed after Rio responded with silence.

"Even if we got some people in there and nobody noticed they didn't actually work there, how are they gonna get in rooms with no keys? What if someone noticed while it was happening? And, if we go there to 'stake out the place', what are we gonna do when they have our faces on camera and connect it back? It'd be second degree burglary. Up to 15 years," Rio explained once they were inside his loft. The dog ran up to him as soon as he came inside, but then ran off when she saw a stranger with him. Rio went over to her food bowl and poured out some kibble, asked Beth to go wait on the couch while he collected the dog from under his bed and brought her to the kitchen to eat where she couldn't see Beth.

"Okay, how do you even know that?" Beth asked, annoyed, but thinking the dog was real cute. She was maybe 20 pounds, pretty small, light brown all around, except for a white spot on her chest, perky ears, big brown eyes, and a long snout. Beth guessed she was a pitbull mixed with chihuahua and something else.

"Asked my lawyer 'bout how risky it was stealing from houses, law's probably the same with hotels, or probably even worse. It's an unnecessary risk, mama. You been doing real good for months with this whole cleaning business, robbing from suburban homes," Rio elaborated his feelings on the matter as he finally sat down next to her on his couch.

"Why didn't you tell me this when we were with Mick at the bar?" Beth asked with her arms crossed at her chest.

"'Cuz Mick ain't the boss here, we are. And we're equal partners so he don't need to be getting wrong ideas about your value to the operation," Rio said.

"Mick helped me out a lot while you were gone. He wouldn't lose respect for me just because you shut down my ideas," Beth replied defensively.

"Maybe he wouldn't, but a man doesn't put his woman down in front of people. It's about respect," Rio said, not believing that he had to defend himself for respecting her authority and wanting others to respect her too. What was she even on about?

"Okay, so a man just puts down 'his' woman in private then? I'm not your property, Rio. If you want to respect me, then just be honest with me. I don't need you to protect my level of respect from the people I led on my own for two months while you were on the other side of the country after I thought I had you killed," Beth argued, staring him in the face with unwavering resolve. Rio rubbed his hand over his beard and took a deep breath.

"I didn't mean it like that, alright, I'm sorry," Rio said tiredly.

"How much were you making with the counterfeit bills at your peak?" Beth asked, and he asked what before she repeated her question.

"I don't know... Somewhere over half a mil every month. That was before _someone_ got me arrested and we had to pull back the operation," he replied, equally as annoyed by her and showing it.

"We're making less than half of that with cleaning. We're giving up 15% of our profits for debts. And I split my cut with my girls, so I'm taking home less than 3k a month. Three times less than when I started out working for you. Hot tubs are bringing in some money, but it's hard. I've got a mortgage, bills, kids, hopes, dreams! I want to make more money," Beth said in frustration, raising her voice higher and higher as the dog ran over to the living room after she finished her dinner and barked at her from several feet away.

Rio hushed the dog, then said, "Elizabeth, I know how it feels when you're still new to being the boss. You wanna take risks, go big, make a lot of money, but it's not worth going to prison or losing all your profits by having to post bail. Can't you just trust me?"

"Fine," Beth said reluctantly, earning another bark from the dog. "But, can we at least go to the hotel to check it out first? Maybe it's just a lot easier than you think," she asked, now pleading with her eyes and Rio gave in. 

"Not likely, but I'm not gonna say no to getting a hotel room with you," he said and Beth leaned in to kiss him as a thank you. Yet another bark. "Do you have to be so fucking loud? Look, she's nice. Come here," Rio ordered the dog, clapping his hands on his lap, annoyed at her for barking over and over again. She took a few steps forward, but then hesitated and barked again. "Lizzie, come here," he said again, patting his lap to encourage her to jump up. After the second order, she jumped up on the couch, laid down on her side with her head on his thigh that was further away from Beth, and she closed her eyes as he pet her stomach.

"What did you call her?" Beth questioned, staring at the dog with wide eyes.

"Yeah, her name's Lizzie. We don't need to talk about it. Now pet the top of her head, but come at her slowly," Rio said dismissively as he rubbed the dog's belly. Beth followed his lead and approached her with an open hand slowly, then gently scratched the top of her head, watching as she opened her eyes to look at Beth then closed them again, relaxing into the couch. Beth was pretty sure that look made her fall in love with Lizzie.

If she got too far ahead of herself, Beth might have believed that she had fallen in love with Rio. It seemed a bit too preposterous.

"You've changed," Beth whispered softly as she took in the scene. Rio laid out on his couch, a little dog's head in his lap, talking to her about her plans and her dreams. Beth remembered how it was the first time he came back, how he threatened to kill her and stuck Mick outside her house to watch her. But this time, when he saw Beth for the first time again after her final encounter with Donny, he didn't tell her to get over it, that it was just a part of the job, that she should be used to it by now. Instead, Rio helped her cope, talked to her like a friend, and held her while she cried.

Rio hummed. "Yeah, mama, but you've changed, too, right?" he asked. Ever since Beth met Rio she was changing, but over the past couple months of leading the gang on her own, she crossed a line she never thought she would, took risks like she's never taken before, and asserted dominance over not just Rio, but everyone in the gang. Rio always knew, ever since she persuaded a group of gang members not to kill her in her home for taking half a million dollars from them, he knew she was special. It just took her a little longer to see it too.

"I'm guessing that Mick told you everything that was happening with me while you were gone, right? But I don't know what happened to you," she spoke softly, wondering what it was that led him to be so gentle with her, so supportive, and so willing to show his affection for her through more than just flirtatious lines and stares. And, forgiving, too. But he understood her. Like he said, he would've done the same thing if he wore her shoes, she was just doing what she thought she had to to survive. Beth wished that she never stole from Rio as much as she did, didn't shoot him, didn't lie about miscarrying his baby, didn't try to get other people to kill him. Rio just as much regretted all the turmoil he put her through for the sake of petty, narcissistic revenge because of his inability to accept that his feelings for her ran more than just skin deep. But, if all that hadn't happened, would they be here now? Or would they have simply drifted apart, a long forgotten memory of Rio's fleeting crush on a woman from the right side of town and Beth's momentary lapse of judgement for falling for him?

Rio paused to contemplate his answer to her previous inquiry. He looked up from the dog in his lap and saw the world in Beth's eyes. "I decided that I was sick of being alone when I didn't have to be. I stopped wanting to push you away," he said quietly. It felt so good to let go of the baggage. To be able to sleep through the night again. To hold Beth in his arms, unconcerned with whether being with her was an idiot move from a business perspective. 

Beth knew, looking into his eyes, the sincerity of his words. Downright romantic, they were. That was when Beth realized that, no, he hadn't changed. But she was finally seeing him with the mask off and the guards down, the real Rio, for the first time. Beth lifted her hand up the side of his neck, just above his shirt collar, and gently rubbed her fingers on his skin before leaning in to kiss him passionately, in love with the feeling of his lips. Only until she had to stop and catch her breath did she let Rio go.

"You've had girlfriends after you divorced your ex-wife, but you... Still felt alone?" Beth asked after a pause. She curled her legs up against him, arms wrapped around him, and got a gnawing sense of insecurity as to where that meant they stood with each other.

"You ain't like those other women, Elizabeth. You... I mean, you know what it's like to feel alone. Even when you have someone, 'cuz you know they ain't right, they ain't what you want, and they don't make you feel the same. But you're right for me, and I haven't felt that for a while," Rio admitted.

"I don't know if you know this because I can't remember if I told Mick about it, or if he'd even tell you, but, I finalized my divorce a couple weeks later after you left. Put down half a security deposit on an apartment for him and the kids. Made a split custody schedule. We're even managing Boland Bubbles on different days. The works," Beth explained, small smile on her face as she looked at Rio happily, hoping to hear the same from him. Rio chuckled, he'd just assumed that she wasn't wearing a ring because they were on the rocks. He didn't ever imagine her leaving him for good, what with the kids, the house, everything.

"So, who's getting on your nerves now that Douche is out?" Rio asked jokingly, looking down at her blushing lip, then back up to her eyes.

"Just you," she whispered as she rubbed her fingers on his neck. Rio grabbed her hand and pulled her into leaning closer to him, making Lizzie get up and do a few turns around a spot on the couch a few inches further away before settling back down. Beth moved her leg down to his other side and lifted her body up to straddle him completely.

"Yeah, it's just you, darling," Rio whispered roughly as he grabbed her hips with his hands and kissed her. He gave back Beth's pearls in the morning, along with breakfast and a cup of coffee.

Ruby and Annie made it challenging. When Beth told them about how her relationship with Rio was progressing, they tried talking her out of it, warning her that this wasn't a good idea, and that he was going to hurt her. But Beth knew that they would come around after seeing the difference in how Rio treated her now. Even strangers still looked at them with disdain and concern. Bartenders and waitresses watched them a little too closely when they went out together, curious and unsettled seeing 'a guy like him with a woman like that.'

With the gang, it was easy. Beth and Rio could be affectionate with each other at Marciella's cook-out. They could sit close to each other, flirt, and kiss, all without getting those looks. Because the gang saw Rio as a brother. Not a total monster. And they saw Beth as a friend, too. At the party, Beth mentioned her plan to a couple more members, two actual blood brothers, Leo and Efrain. The plan was for Beth and Rio to go to a hotel in Chicago, a day after the next drop off with Morrison in Cleveland, to observe and learn about how the hotel staff worked, what doors they needed to walk into to find the key cards, and when they changed shifts. Then, Leo and Efrain would go to the hotel on the same day of the week later to find out more about what Beth and Rio didn't see. When Leo expressed some uncertainty about it, Rio defended the plan.

"Go for a night, just see how it goes. Ain't no harm in that. Elizabeth'll figure out the next move after that," Rio said, showing confidence in Beth's capabilities as a leader of their gang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by the season three finale of "Killing Eve" a show on BBC. Highly recommended if you love Brio and might want to see a similar dynamic (good girl + criminal) between two beautiful women.


	8. Let you take every line I've got

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth sees the fruits of her labor, Rio gives her a gift, and she walks into a new scheme on a whim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! thanks for clicking on my story, please enjoy the next chapter! :)

Beth stood by waiting anxiously as Morrison and his appraiser studied their haul. They'd brought with them many new things: designer handbags, two bags of loose diamonds, designer shoes, even a tiara. Beth knew she'd done well, but she lightly tapped her foot on the concrete as she waited to hear his price. Truthfully, she didn't even have an idea for how much it was all worth, because she never pawned a handgun, diamonds, shoes, or a tiara before. She was hoping for a rough number around 120k, at least twice as what he gave two weeks ago because this was the work product of twice the length of time. Rio smirked in amusement when he noticed Beth's little tick. He moved his foot over to hers and lifted the toe of his sneaker over the topside of her shoe to stop her tapping. Beth squinted her eyes and leered at him before huffing and taking a small step back to pull her leg away from him, making her boyfriend chuckle quietly.

Rio took a step forward, put his hand up on her arm, and leaned in close to her ear. "Hey, you did good, mama. Have some faith," Rio whispered before pressing a kiss to her cheek. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, already feeling better through Rio's comforting touches. Then, when she saw Morrison start walking back over towards them, her heart immediately started beating way too fast again.

"So, how much you want for it?" he asked, which absolutely turned Beth upside down.

"What?" she questioned in a high-pitched voice. "Last time we came to you, you made the first offer," she pressed on, clearly flustered and on edge.

Morrison laughed. "Yeah, and if I'm remembering right, you didn't like my offer. Let me have you make the first move this time," he said, clearly enjoying pushing Beth's buttons.

"The fuck you got an appraiser for then? Just tell us your number, man," Rio said, annoyed by Morrison's antics. As far as Rio was concerned, the only one allowed to push his girlfriend's buttons was himself.

Morrison had never seen Rio with a woman before, it kinda surprised him. Because to him, Rio didn't seem like the type of dude to date a woman that he was also in business with. But even with the very few interactions that he witnessed between Rio and Beth today and the last time they'd come, Morrison could tell that it wasn't just a casual romance. "Alright, man," Morrison chuckled, amused by Rio's apparent jealousy. "Look, you delivered. And my daughter's been looking for a tiara just like this for her eighth grade dance. So, I'll give you 160 for it," Morrison offered. Suddenly, Beth lost her breath. "Does that work for you? Or are you gonna try to negotiate a better price out of me again?" he teased.

"No," Beth said eagerly. "No, that's good," she repeated again. Morrison asked them both back to the trunk of his car when he counted out the money for them before they exchanged the goods for the money. Beth didn't say another word until she was in Rio's passenger seat as he drove to their hotel in Cleveland. "A hundred sixty!" she yelled cheerfully. "A hundred sixty? If we get as much for the next drop off, we'll have over a quarter-million by the end of the month," she said.

"You get better at this every week," Rio said, moving his hand over to her thigh. "I'm proud of you... You keep workin' harder than anyone else for it. You should give yourself a bigger cut," he said, squeezing her gently. She put his hand over his and caressed his wrist.

"I can't do that," she said, laughing softly, giddy over getting handsomely rewarded for her hard work and effort.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I mean... It's not fair. It's not like I could get all that stuff on my own, without our people," she said dismissively.

"Yeah, and they couldn't do it without you, either," he affirmed. "It's a lot more useful to you than a string of pearls, right? No one else needs to know Morrison didn't give us 150 for the haul. You deserve it. For you and your girls. Keep it between us," he said.

"You really think that I should take ten thousand dollars, just for me? Are you testing me?" Beth questioned, moving her hand under his so she could lace their fingers together.

"Why would I be testing you now? I'm not trying to do that to you anymore," Rio said defensively. 

"I mean, it's just that the last time that I stole from you, you took all my furniture, and I couldn't get it back until you fake died," she chuckled.

"We're past that now," he said, reassuringly squeezing her hand in his grasp.

"...Are you sure?" Beth asked still hesitant.

"You deserve it, Elizabeth," Rio said. Beth smiled, but she wondered if Rio was letting her take some more money to persuade her into letting go of the hotel idea, which she really didn't want to let go of. At least not now that she didn't know enough to find a way to make it work. It was different from the pawn shop idea, she knew that a real long shot, but maybe the hotel thing could work, right?

"I still want to check out the hotel in Chicago, though," she hedged, expecting him to try convincing her again that it wasn't worth trying.

"Yeah, 'course. We got our bags packed. Head out there tomorrow by check out time," he said. When they got to the hotel in Cleveland, Rio asked for a single bed room. While they stood at the front counter in the lobby, Beth looked around and noticed a jacket on the back of a chair in the breakfast room. Rio grabbed the key card from the receptionist and put his wallet back in his pocket, then made a move to pick up his bags to head for the elevator when Beth spoke up again.

"Hey, um, last time we came, I accidentally left something in our room after checking out... I know it's been a couple of weeks, but is there any chance you have it in your lost and found? It's a gold necklace with a heart-shaped pendant," Beth asked with a soft smile.

"Oh, I don't know, but we might. I can go ahead and look for you if you'd like," the woman said.

"Thank you so much," Beth said, watching as the woman walked to the little room behind the desk. Rio looked at her questioningly. Curious. Suspicious. Beth returned a knowing look and a small smirk. Just a few seconds later, a couple with a baby and a five-or-six-year-old child. The baby was crying, the couple looked exasperated, and got even more frustrated when they came to the desk and saw no one there. But they saw someone standing with their back turned in the back room. The man started banging on the little bell on top of the desk, getting the attention of the receptionist, who quickly shuffled back to the front desk.

"I'm so sorry, Miss, but I couldn't find it. There's still another drawer that I couldn't search. Why don't you come on back and take a look, while I help them get a room?" she offered, motioning with her hand for Beth to come around to the end of the desk and unlatched the door to let her through. Beth thanked her and made her way to the backroom, turning around to make sure that the receptionist was totally focused on the new guests. Beth opened the top drawer on the left side of the cabinet. There were mostly useless things there. Phone chargers, eyeglasses, cheap watches, fake rusty gold and silver jewelry, and what were presumably house keys.

When Beth pulled open the second drawer, though, there was much more. Diamond and gold necklaces and bracelets, expensive watches, a few wallets. Each item was inside a little zip-lock bag, marked with numbers. The numbers on top looked like they were room numbers where the items were found, and the numbers on the bottom, separated by forward-slashes, seemed to be the dates on which they were found. Many of them were recent, in the last couple of months, but some went back 7, 8, and up to 11 months. Beth stopped to look around the room a little, and she saw a piece of paper taped to the wall on the left side of the room, just a few feet away. The words printed on the paper said that lost items would be returned to the housekeeper that found them if they were not collected in six months. So, one of the hotel staff was clearly behind on their duty to return the items to someone, or maybe the housekeeper that found the items wasn't working there any longer, but either way, Beth figured nobody would miss the items if they disappeared.

Noting the camera in the corner of the room, Beth stepped slightly to the right to shield the view of the entire drawer with her body. There were six total items that were tagged outside of the six month period: a diamond ring, two gold necklaces, two gold bracelets, and a watch. She tucked each item into her coat pockets and pulled her necklace with the heart-shaped pendant out from under her sweater. Quickly, she closed the drawer and walked back out, just when the receptionist was handing key cards to the couple and giving them instructions on where to find the elevator. As they walked off in that direction, Beth unlatched the desk door and came back out.

"Were you able to find your necklace?" the receptionist asked.

Beth smiled and lifted up the pendant on her necklace to show her. "Yup, thank you again. Have a nice night," she said sweetly, picking up one bag full of money while Rio picked back up the other bag and the duffel bag with their clothes in it. They silently walked to the elevator, took a ride up to their floor, and got a headache from the crying baby in the elevator with them. They also waited until they were in their room to talk.

"I did something..." Beth said surreptitiously as she set the bag of money down and pushed it under the bed with her toe.

"Show me," Rio said as he did the same with his bag, then took off his jacket. Beth reached inside her coat pockets and laid out the zip-lock bags on the bed to display them for Rio. His eyes immediately set on the steel watch, he picked it up gently, brought it to his face to look closer at it. It had a black background, the word Rolex was engraved in green with a golden crown above it and the words Oyster Perpetual engraved in silver under it. It wasn't ticking. "You know how much this watch is worth?" he asked, greatly amazed at her ability to just walk into places and steal shit without being noticed.

"No," she said, having no clue at all. "How much?"

"This watch on its own sells at retail for over six thousand dollars. If it's not a counterfeit," he said, handing it to her so she could see it up close too.

"For one watch? Jesus Christ," she said, startled as she took it back and studied it closer. It didn't look all that special, no diamonds encrusted. "I think the label on the bag means it was found 10 months ago. No one ever came back to find it?" she questioned. Beth didn't know the first thing about checking if a Rolex watch was counterfeit, but it did say Officially Certified and Swiss Made on the face of the clock, and it had the Rolex logo on the time-changing gear.

"Whoever got the kinda money to spend on a watch like this and forget it in a hotel room prolly just got a new one when they found out it was missing," Rio said dismissively, taking the watch and everything else, and putting it away in their duffel bag.

"How can we make a scheme out of this?" Beth asked, immediately thinking of a way to systematize taking things from hotel lost and found drawers. Rio ordered them some burgers and fries for room service and they sat together around the desk in their room, plotting out a new plan. Going around to hotels personally would probably get too expensive that it wasn't worth it, and it would definitely look suspicious if anybody noticed how often they were booking hotels. Yeah, that wouldn't work. In classic Beth fashion, she pulled out her phone and googled what hotels do with lost items. She found some online forum post claiming that most hotels ship lost items back to their owners at no cost to them for customer appreciation and high reviews on travel websites.

Rio and Beth worked out that a solid idea might be to call into hotels, feign forgetfulness, make up some room numbers and rough dates, and hope for the best. It would only be to supplement what they got from houses, of course, but maybe they'd occasionally score big with six thousand dollar watches or something else that was special, and they'd probably be met with a lot of no, sorry's. _It'd be fun, though,_ Beth said.

"Should we still go to Chicago tomorrow?" she asked, taking a fry off his plate when she finished hers but was still hungry.

"You don't wanna?" Rio asked, unsure why she would change her mind after they fought over--but maybe passionately discussed was a better phrase for it--the potential viability of a plan to con a hotel in Chicago by disguising their people as housekeepers.

"Well, we got a new plan in the works now, so," she said as she shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't mean you gotta abandon the old plan, though," Rio said reassuringly. Beth smiled in return, touched that he seemed to really turn around on the plan and support her.

"I guess I deserve a day off, at least," Beth replied, very excited at the prospect of being a tourist in Chicago with her boyfriend, taking cheesy photos, and getting souvenirs for Danny, Kenny, Emma, Marcus, and Jane. When they checked into the Hotel Chicago, they brought their bags up to the room, took the money out and put it into the safe, then came back downstairs. They sat together for a couple hours, drinking coffee in the sitting room by the lobby, talking, looking through brochures, and watching how things at the hotel operated.

There was just one thing that put a wrench in her plan. One thing that she couldn't think of a way to get around to be able to pull off her hotel heist master plan. She noticed it after seeing fifteen or more hotel staff walk through the lobby, into the laundry room, the kitchen behind the breakfast buffet, a closet room with cleaning supplies, and into the elevators with cleaning carts. 

"Rio," she hushed, "Everyone that works here, except the receptionist, is Asian," Beth whispered under her breath, leaning closer to Rio over the small round table they were sitting at.

Rio leaned in close himself, looked straight into Beth's eyes, and said, "you should really learn some Spanish."

Beth looked back and forth between his brown eyes and his mouth, puzzled. She leaned back. "Okay, but, why?" she asked.

"So, we can talk about people without them understanding us," he explained, making Beth chuckle at the suggestion. Rio took a look over at the person that was restocking the coffee bar, who was putting new pastries in the glass case by the reception desk, who just walked into the elevator with a cleaning cart. Beth was right. "Management prolly gets away with paying them less than white people," he commented as he ripped a piece off his cheese danish and ate it.

"That's fucked up," she whispered under her breath.

"We don't got any Asian people working for us, Elizabeth," he said.

"Yeah, I know that, Captain Obvious," she said, giggling.

So, maybe it might happen at another hotel, but, yeah, not this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Stars" by the xx.


	9. Despierta, mi amor!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Rio confess their love for each other!!!! It's as cheesy as you expect it to be. 
> 
> They also deal with one of their's being arrested for theft!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a lot of fun writing this weekend, not just this chapter, but also another chapter of "Please want me" and a new short story "Hell Is Other People." Thank you to everyone who's shown love to my stories recently!! It fills my heart to see so many people enjoying my writing. Starting tomorrow, I sadly will not have the free time to write as much as I have been lately. This story is literally my baby. I'm gonna miss working on this story every day and churning out new chapters 2-3 times a week. So, expect less frequent updates, and please wish me luck for this new stage of my life that I will be starting soon! 
> 
> But, finally, please enjoy this chapter called "Despierta, mi amor!" or "Awaken, my love!

Things with the cleaning business continued working smoothly. They started to cut back a little on how many houses they'd hit on a given day for two reasons. First, they started taking more stuff from the houses they were hitting. Second, it meant less of a chance of getting caught. The lost and found idea was also thriving, and it was an opportunity for Annie to join back in. Beth, of course, suggested it to Ruby as well, but Ruby said she'd just let them two take care of it.

So, they'd both call hotels in Florida, figuring those would be the most accommodating to out of state tourists. The receptionist would ask what was missing, what room it was lost in, and when was their stay. They switched it up every time. Sometimes a necklace was missing, other times it was a ring. They'd forget the room number--"Oh, but I'm sure that I was on the fifth floor! Or was it the fourth?"-- and they would keep the date vague--"Last month" or "Around 7 or 8 weeks ago." That would go on until they got lucky and got what they asked for. In two days, there'd be a package on someone's doorstep with the item. Beth and Annie hardly had to break a sweat.

Beth decided to call off the hotel heist idea for the time being since the lost and found scheme was bringing in a steady flow of supplemental jewelry.

So, there weren't any business issues. So far. But, Beth did learn she had, what she called, a problem. What any other normal person would call a revelation. But that was Beth. Perpetually afraid of what she felt inside.

Rio and Beth's relationship had translated into Rio bringing Marcus and Lizzie over on some days when Beth had the kids at her house. Marcus and Jane had fallen back into friendship fast. Rio developed a mentoring role with Danny and Kenny. Seen as the tall, dark, and handsome guy that had won over their mom, the boys asked him for girl advice all the time. Before, Beth may not have been so keen on allowing Rio to teach her boys how to woo a woman. For obvious reasons. But they were past that now, and he found better ways of wooing that were more suitable for teaching her teenage sons. Then, there was Emma, Lizzie, and Beth, three best friends.

Their families had grown fiercely intertwined.

And yet, those days had nothing on the nights that Beth would spend at Rio's loft when Dean and Rhea had the kids. Rio would make dinner for her and kick her out of the kitchen because-- "You work hard enough making dinner for me and all those kids when we're at yours." He would set her down on the couch with a glass of wine and she would read or watch TV until dinner was ready. They'd stay up talking and sharing.

One of the things that Beth was most curious about was Rio's dad, who passed away when Rio was just 24 years old, which was also when Rio took over for him as the gang's leader. There was so much to learn about how Rio loved his dad dearly but also suffered an immense amount of mental trauma because of his dad's actions... Which made a lot of things make sense. Rio was equally as interested in Beth's relationship with her mom. That which also made a lot of things make sense.

They'd go to bed together after long nights all wrapped up in each other. Beth had started taking the pill, so they didn't have to worry about condoms or plan B. Rio knew it meant _a lot_ because Beth started acting so emotional in bed, latching onto him, kissing his shoulder languidly, and not letting him go let Lizzie out until he wrangled out of her grasp and kissed her a million times while promising he'd be back very soon.

Beth more or less knew how she felt, but it bothered her to no end, wondering if Rio felt the same way. Rio didn't feel the same exactly, not for a lack of being crazy over her, but simply because he didn't think about it so much.

One night when they're cuddling, Rio says he's got to take Lizzie on her walk. Beth doesn't hold onto him any tighter, doesn't wish that he waits another minute, doesn't kiss the scars on his shoulder. She just lets him go without a word. That kind of hit Rio over the head with it. It left him with this deep pit in his stomach where he wanted to ask for those things, where he yearned for her physical affection, where not getting it was sickening enough to make him want to rip his skin off and offer her a pound of his flesh just to get it back. He slumped out of bed and led Lizzie down to the patch of grass right in front of his building, let her do her business, and brought her straight up again. Maybe she did make a mess zooming around the loft for a half hour before she got tired, but he came back home and laid with Beth in his arms for a few minutes more, and that's what mattered.

When Beth tells Annie and Ruby that she has a problem, the first train of thought they hop into is that Rio has done something Bad. Because Rio allowing Beth to take $10,000 of business profits for herself and her girls, without ratting her out to anyone else in the gang, it seemed too good to be true. Rio naming his dog after Beth seemed a little out of character. Rio taking Beth to the top floor of the Willis Tower in Chicago and kissing her until her breath went away seemed a little too much romance-movie-cliche for him. So, imagine their shock when Beth says she's pretty sure she's in love with Rio.

"Part of me still feels like I shouldn't be in love with him, you know? Because of our past. I always felt so alone and so taken advantage of, like he was the boss and I was just a pawn in his game. When he came back from California, I thought it'd go back to more of the same. That he'd take charge and take the business away from me and give me nothing but scraps. But we've been working so well lately, and we're so much stronger together. And, just, the way he makes me feel- It's him."

Her phone ringing stopped her, and it was Rio that was calling, which again seemed so cliche to Annie and Ruby. Of course, he'd call right when they're talking about him. Like he could sense it somehow.

"Did you know about this? When did she get in so deep?" Annie whispered to Ruby, all concerned and uneasy.

"Oh, believe me, I had no idea it was _that_ serious," Ruby whispered back.

"Hey, did Marcus's team win?" Beth asked when she picked up the phone. Rio was in attendance at Marcus's little league game.

"Dunno, I had to leave at the top of the 4th inning. We got a problem, Elizabeth," Rio said, distressed.

"What's up?" Beth asked.

"Joel got picked up for theft. Bail schedule's set at $5,000. I'm going to the loft to pick up all the jewelry I got there and I'm bringin' it to you. You home?" Rio explained.

"Yeah, I'm home, but... Joel? What happened?" Beth questioned.

"I know as much as you, darling. Be there soon," Rio said before hanging up.

"Shit, shit..." Beth cursed as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "One of ours was just arrested for theft!" she cried.

"Arrested? What... does that- Do the cops know about the business?" Annie questioned nervously.

"I don't know... I don't know! Nobody's ever been arrested since we started cleaning," Beth answered.

"Are you gonna tell him you're in love with him? Do you think he loves you too?" Ruby asked.

"Oh my god, I don't know!" Beth yelled aggressively, making Annie and Ruby cringe and apologize softly. "Rio says he's coming over here. I guess we'll talk about what to do when he gets here... And, I, I tried to tell him so many times, but it scared me too much to say it. I don't know if he loves me. I really hope he does, but what if he doesn't?" Beth asked, cowering nervously and pulling her feet up on the couch.

"Hey, what's not to love about you, right?" Ruby whispered gently, putting her hand up on Beth's shoulder and moving closer to her.

"Beth, he probably fell in love with you when he learned that you were willing to pay a hitman just to have Boland Bubbles all for yourself. That kind of persistence probably turned him on more than anything," Annie joked, making Beth laugh softly to herself.

"It's obvious, Beth. That man could have stayed dead to you. Never come back into your life. But he just couldn't stop thinking of you. And it's kind of amazing how he went from sending you body parts in the mail just so you would come back to him, to now he's taking care of you, giving you nice things, treating you right, not sleeping with anyone else," Ruby said, stroking Beth's hair as Beth laid her head down on Ruby's shoulder.

"Yeah, I mean, he's absolutely crazy about you. And he's a better person because of you, Bethie. Of course he loves you. He probably loves you more than he loves himself. He'd be crazy not to," Annie said comfortingly. Just before Rio got back to Beth's house, Beth went up to her room to grab a bag and a case of stolen goods that she had hidden in her closet. Rio told her that he's gonna post bail for Joel and talk to him to figure out what happened, and that she's gotta go to Cleveland ASAP. To sell off all the stuff they're holding onto, just in case the cops got any evidence of the cleaning business scams and came looking for more stolen goods. Rio was noticeably frazzled, which only put Beth more on edge.

"I've got to meet Morrison now? Are you sure we can't just hold onto everything until the next meeting?" Beth questioned.

"I don't know how bad this is. I don't know what the cops know. I don't know how they found out Joel was stealing, or if they got anything out of him. If the cops come and find cases of stolen jewelry in this house, you're gonna be prosecuted for grand theft, Elizabeth. I'll lose everything. I can't let that happen. Okay, we need to act fast," Rio pressured.

"Hey, it's okay, Beth, we'll go with you," Ruby promised eagerly, growing increasingly more worried as well.

"No, no. You two can't go. Morrison doesn't know you. He doesn't even know Beth that well. He'll think you two are undercover FBI or some shit, that they've got you fooled. He's not gonna trust you, and he's not gonna give you any money. Look, at least he's seen you before, Beth. He knows that I trust you. He'll probably already be on edge without me being there, but you gotta do this on your own if you wanna make a trade with him. I'll take care of Joel while you're gone," he said to Elizabeth, and setting aside Beth being stunned that Rio referred to her as Beth and not 'Elizabeth' like he always did, she hated the plan.

"I don't want to go to Cleveland, right now, all on my own. Can't I bail out Joel?" she asked.

"You want to take care of him?" Rio asked. Beth was much more inclined for it.

"Well, yeah, but... What- What do you mean by take care of him? Like... What do you want me to do to him?" Beth asked cautiously.

"I dunno... It depends how bad it is. You make the call. He's at the police station on Grand River Ave," Rio said, expressing confidence in her ability to make the right decision on her own. Beth nodded her head firmly, then Rio went to pick up the case of jewelry and the duffel bag.

"Wait, Rio," Beth said, stopping him just as he was about go out the door. He looked back at her expectantly waiting for what she had to say. "I... I love you," she said, staring directly into his eyes and smiling softly at him.

Rio paused, looking at her, then at Annie and Ruby sitting nearby, watching with their mouths slightly agape. "We'll be okay, Elizabeth. Whatever happens, we'll figure it out. It's... it's not gonna ruin us," he hedged, wondering if she only said that because she was afraid that she was close to going to prison for grand theft.

Beth nodded. "Yeah, but, I still love you," she repeated, more softly as her eyes started watering just a little. Rio slowly put down the case and the bag before walking over to her. And he knew that she was being sincere. That she loved him. Rio kissed her tenderly with one hand on the back of her neck and the other caressing her cheek. "I love you, Elizabeth," he said quietly while holding eye contact with her. "I'll be back soon, alright?" he said once he took a step back. They all said goodbye to him as he picked up the case and the bag, then left to meet Morrison.

"Wow," Ruby said when Rio was out the door and they all stayed where they were, astonished at what had just happened.

"We need to bail someone out of jail," Beth said after a long pause, scurrying over to the kitchen where she kept her cash and taking out five grand. Annie and Ruby went with her to pick up Joel as they were interested in seeing Beth in Boss Bitch Mode. Since they mostly fizzled out of participating a ton in the gang's activity, they rarely saw Beth 'take care of business' anymore. As Joel walked out of the station with her, he was hanging his head and frowning, clearly embarrassed like a kid whose mom just caught him stealing candy. Ruby and Annie were sitting in the front seats of the van, so Beth and Joel got in the back. There was a brief pause as the tension in the air settled, Beth looking disappointingly at Joel, Annie and Ruby looking sorry for him, and Joel looking down at his shoes trying to avoid eye contact with any of them. He didn't know if Rio picking him up would be any better or worse than what was about to happen, but either way, he knew it'd be bad.

"Explain yourself," Beth said sternly as Ruby pulled out of the parking lot and started driving back to Beth's house.

"River, it was just a stupid mistake... A stupid mistake, okay, it's not gonna happen again, an', an', an' I don't think they know shit! You know, they're not gonna find out nuthin'. I didn't say anythin'. I swear," Joel said nervously, hands waving around dramatically.

"Did he just call you River?" Annie peeped from the front seat.

"Rio and River... Cute," Ruby muttered to herself.

"Joel," Beth spoke his name like it was a threat, accent on the vowels right and everything. "I told you to _explain_ yourself. Not give me excuses," she said with a bite to her tone.

"Okay, so... Last week, that house we hit on 39th, the one with the big pool in the back, when we were there I found this watch. Icy as hell. So, I mean, I, I kinda forgot to give it to you. Yesterday, I wore it when I took my girl out to dinner at this fancy restaurant, an' I guess, the people from the house, they were there. So, I'm eating my steak, you know, then all the sudden this bitch come up to me askin' where I got that watch. 'Cuz it look just like the one that her husband was missin' an' I told her that it's my watch, but she goes fuckin' crazy, River. Bitch starts-" as he spoke, Beth shushed him loudly.

"What we're not gonna do is keep referring to this woman as a bitch. You stole from her, didn't you? You went to jail for it. That makes you the bitch here. You're the bitch, Joel," Beth said pointing a painted fingernail in his face, making him pout and cower even further into his seat. Annie and Ruby made amused noises from the front seat, but otherwise stayed quiet waiting to hear the rest of the story.

"Right... So, this woman... She starts yellin' 'bout how last week there were Mexicans cleaning her house, and by the way, I mean, you know I'm not Mexican, right? I'm a Tico, so, you know, she, she profiled me! I mean, if she saw you out with your mans an' you was wearin' that watch, she prolly wouldn't even have noticed, you know what I'm sayin'!" Joel continued bumbling out his story.

"Tell me how exactly _I_ would get caught wearing a stolen watch. Because that doesn't sound like something I would do," Beth leered her eyes at him, and he shook his head fiercely.

"No, no, you're right. It doesn't," he agreed anxiously. "So... So, anyway, my luck, right? 'Cuz there's a cop right there in the restaurant an' he comes over an' asks 'Is there a problem here, Ma'am?' an' she goes on about how she saw me at her house last week, an' I was cleanin', an' I stole this watch from her husband, an' that I need to get arrested. The cop fuckin' cuffs me an' he takes off the watch an' he gives it to the lady an' she's saying she wants to press charges an' shit..."

"They take me down to the station, start askin' me if the watch was mine, how I got it, if I knew who that woman in the restaurant was, if it was true that I was at her house with a cleanin' company. So, I, I tell 'im that, yeah, I took it from the house while I was there cleanin' an' I did it 'cuz I planned to quit the same day, told 'im I quit my job the same day, right after I finished cleanin' that house, an' I took the watch 'cuz I wanted somethin', like a reward for workin' there, an' that I got a different job workin' for a lawn care company, 'cuz I hate cleanin'. An' they bought it, okay? They already gave the woman the watch back, an' I wasn't wearing nuthin' else and the lady ain't say nuthin' else was stolen from her house, so they don't know what's really goin' on. They don't know 'bout you, or, or what we do. So, we good. I swear, alright, we good," Joel said, still antsy as hell. They'd made it back to Beth's house by the end of the story, but they stayed in the van for the time being.

"How can I trust you, Joel?" Beth asked.

"I dunno... I dunno, River, but look, you, you can't take me off the schedule, ok? You just can't. My moms been in an' out of the hospitals these last few months, got an issue with her diabetes, an' I need the money, okay, I need it to take care of her. Please, please don't take me off the schedule. I'm begging, River," Joel pleaded.

"Joel," Beth said sweetly, and he looked at her, big brown eyes filled with hope and remorse. "Get out of the van," she said sternly. And he hurried to get out, then followed behind her as she walked up the sidewalk to her front door. Annie and Ruby trailed behind him. They all came inside the house and locked the front door.

"What are you going to do about him, Beth?" Annie asked, showing concern for Joel's well-being.

"He seems really sorry, Beth," Ruby piped up.

"Yeah," Joel hastily agreed. "Yeah. I'm real sorry, River. Very, very sorry. An' I'll never do it again. Long as I live," Joel promised, crossing his heart, kissing his hand, and pointing up.

"You said you hated cleaning, didn't you? So, maybe you wouldn't mind if I took you off the schedule?" Beth suggested, standing in the middle of her front hallway and giving Joel a death stare that genuinely made him fearful.

"No, no, no, I love cleanin'," he said, panicky. "I'll clean anything, River."

"So, clean my house," she said nonchalantly, getting a 'what' out of him. "I said, clean my house, Joel. Top to bottom. Downstairs, upstairs. My room, the kids' rooms, all the bathrooms. No spot left unclean. Get to it," Beth said, opening her storage closet where she had her cleaning supplies, then turning her back away from him. Joel despondently approached the closet and took out some cleaning supplies to start in the living room. Beth and the girls went out to the backyard, pausing in the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine and three glasses. Beth chugged a full glass before pouring out a second one and taking a more appropriately small-sized sip.

"How'd you get him so nervous like that? Like you weren't even threatening him with any physical harm or danger," Ruby asked, impressed with her prowess.

"They listen to me," Beth shrugged her shoulders. She sighed, "I guess I should call Rio."

"You just told him to clean your whole house and he's just... He's just doing it," Annie mumbled, looking back through the kitchen windows at Joel while he swept the floor.

"Hey. We talked. He says that the cops should have no reason to suspect that he was part of a bigger operation," Beth explained to Rio over the phone.

"And you believe him?" Rio questioned warily.

"Yeah... We'll lay low for a bit, just in case. Stop cleaning for a little while," Beth said.

"You set some boundaries with 'im, though, right?" Rio asked.

"Of course I did. And hurry back, okay?" Beth said, wishing she could be with him now.

"Yeah, mama, 'course I will. Hey, I love you," Rio said smoothly, a soft upswing to his tone on his last few words. Beth smiled as she rubbed her hands on her dress.

"I love you, too," she said while her heart started beating fast inside her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by Donald Glover's album entitled "Awaken, my love!"


	10. Another story must begin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rio spends some time in California, where he reevaluates his feelings for Elizabeth and looks for a fresh start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I mentioned writing something like this a while ago. I went back and forth for how to post this story. This story delves more into Rio's time in California after he faked his death and left the gang for Elizabeth to run. I felt this was important to write so that my readers get a better understanding of Rio's (as a character in this story) intentions for trying to have a good relationship with Beth when he comes back into her life. At first, I wanted to post it on its own and not as a chapter to this story because (1) it's very different from the main story and (2) the timing isn't exactly right. This is written in third person POV but it is solely centered around Rio, whereas the main story is written in third person POV that mainly follows Beth's story and only occasionally focuses on Rio's perspective. Also, obviously, the story takes place at a time that doesn't directly follow the preceding chapter, and it actually takes place concurrently with the chapters where Beth is running the gang's operations on her own. 
> 
> But ultimately, I decided it would be best to post this story as a chapter of I would have given all of me to have you because I want all of this story's readers to read it, and I don't want any of you to accidentally miss out on it if I post it as a new story! I was thinking about one of my favorite stories, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and I remembered how powerful that story was even though every single chapter of that story was told from a different character than the last chapter's perspective. I also thought of when was the best time to include this chapter (because I started working on it way back before I started writing chapter 6) and I decided that despite the fact that this chapter takes place at a time before many of the chapters preceding it, this story would best be told after Rio gives Beth his confession of love in order to give you all insight into how he came to realize that he does, in fact, love her and how he dealt with those feelings internally.
> 
> Anyway, all that to say, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and that you feel this story was told at an appropriate time in the context of the larger story. I also hope that you will let me know what you think either in the comments or on my Tumblr if that makes you more comfortable (onemore-light.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Warning: There is some mild substance abuse in this chapter, you might say that Rio drinks a bit too much alcohol. He also smokes a little weed.

Loving Elizabeth was like staring down the barrel of a gun. Sometimes he had it turned on himself. Sometimes it was in her hands. Either way, the ending was the same. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe running wasn't the right answer. But he was sick of the lies, right in his face, like he was too stupid to ever see through them. Hiring someone to take him out? Stealing his money to pay for it? Well, Rio decided that he was done being taken for a fool. Done letting someone else control his emotions and set his heart ablaze. If she wanted it so bad, then she could have it. The hot tubs. The cash. The empire. She could have it all if she thought it was so easy because he was tired of having to walk the line between loving her and holding power over her. He wanted neither. Not anymore. No, he wanted to go to California, find a beach, and let the waves wash away his confusion. Although that would probably require more of a flood.

When Rio kidnapped Fitz and got him to confess that Elizabeth hired him to kill Rio, no fewer than ten thousand thoughts went through his brain. So many of them were thoughts that he was simply ill-equipped and unwilling to confront at that time. Instead, he latched onto some of the crazier ones. Like running away to his hometown. Like paying off Fitz to help him fake his death. Like leaving behind his son and everything he had. Like giving her control over the operation to see if she could put her money where her mouth was and really handle it all on her own. There was a wake. His mom gave a fake speech. Mick cried some fake tears. She needed to think he was gone for good. She did.

Meanwhile, Rio was on the shore watching the waves crash with a joint in his hand. But no matter how he tried not to think about it, all his thoughts traced back to Beth. He wondered how he could be such a coward. So unable to do what needed to be done. So afraid to just say how he felt inside. So concerned with other people's opinions. He found himself unable to think of a way back to undo all the damage. Wishing that he could just trade this life for someone else's. Someone simpler, someone easier, someone who could be with her without all the baggage and the tragic back story. There was a flyer stapled onto one of the wooden posts on the pier that he walked past every day.

"Good things come to those who wait."

It made Rio sick to his stomach.

He could find solace in a few things. The first thing was a puppy. She was way too skinny and small. Light brown all over but a white splotch on her chest. Adorable brown eyes, alert ears, and a long snout. When people weren't looking, she would steal their food and runaway, but she never got too close to people. Sometimes kids would call her, but she would run away then too because she hated being touched. But Rio became a fixture in her life, always in the same spot on the sand each day, Monday through Sunday. For the first couple of days, after he noticed that she lived on the beach, he started getting two orders of tacos, one for him and one for her. After finishing his tacos, he would set the other plate two feet away from him and then laid down facing away from it. She grabbed all the steak she could fit in her mouth then run away to spit it up further away from him and eat it all. Later, she just started eating next to him, but then when he would turn over to face her, she would run. Then, she could eat while he watched her, but when he reached his hand out to touch her, she would run.

After two weeks of this back and forth, Rio reached out with two pieces of steak in his palm and she ate straight from his hand. He scooted over the plate with the rest of the steak and she finished it all. She laid down next to him and wagged her tail as Rio pet her behind the ears. When she rolled over and let Rio pet her belly, he shed a small tear. "Does this mean we good now?" he asked in a whisper while scratching her belly. He waited another few days to see if she still accepted his affection again and again. And she did, so one day, he showed up with a collar and a leash to put them on her.

"Time I give you a name, now, right?" he hushed as she slept in his lap on the sand. There being only one name on his mind, day in and day out, he called her, "Lizzie." That night, she came back to his motel room with him and made herself at home there. He took her to the vet the next day to get her spayed and gave her some shots, then brought her to a pet store to pick out some toys and get some dog food. In less than a month, she gained back a very healthy amount of weight and played like a very happy dog.

The second thing that brought him solace was an elderly woman. One night when he was kicking back tequila shots at a bar on the strip, a woman approached him. He was familiar with the routine because he tended to attract ladies that were more forward. But he wasn't thinking about _her_ , not when he was on his fourth shot. Or at least, he wasn't trying to. "I think you'd like some company," the woman said to him as she sat down on the barstool next to his and set her purse down on the bar counter. She was a tall, long black-haired white woman who was much too young for him, probably 23-25 by the looks of her. And Rio didn't notice, because he wasn't paying attention, but she was eating in the restaurant with two friends, another woman and a man, who pushed her into going over to talk to him.

She was pretty, made up all nice to go out on a Saturday night, and she had on a low cropped strapless shirt and tight light wash jeans. She had a sleeve on one of her arms and lots of jewelry in her face. Did Rio prefer to be alone? Yeah. But it was always nice to be wanted.

"What are you drinking to forget?" she asked him after ordering two more shots, and of course she didn't actually care. So, Rio wouldn't dignify the question with a response. He just waited for her to say whatever she had to say next. When the shots came, she paid the bartender in cash. Then, she said, "I'm trying to forget my asshole ex that cheated on me with my roommate." The line probably worked with most guys who wanted it to be easy. Maybe Rio was looking for something a little easier. She took the shot fast.

"Gonna take you more than an ounce of patron to forget 'im," Rio slurred, picking up the shot glass and taking down his fifth shot.

"Yeah? How much more, huh?" she asked, biting her lip and gracelessly staring at his neck, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. Rio studied the way her eyes drifted down. He moistened his lip with his tongue and a lopsided grin spread across his face as he was amused at her unabashed gaze

"I'm Chris," he mumbled quietly, narrowing his eyes at her when she finally made eye contact again. Rio shifted in the stool to turn towards her and set his hand down on her knee. She said her name, but it was entirely unimportant to him because all he needed to hear was her saying yes to getting out of the bar after a half-hour more of pleasantries and inconsequential flirting. They walked down the street back to Rio's motel, less than half a mile away, and the whole time Rio was counting her so lucky she hadn't picked someone just a slight bit crazier than him to leave with.

He felt drunk with her hips in his hands, her lips on his neck, his head floating. In Rio's lap, she looked like someone else, someone older, someone blonder, someone curvier, someone Elizabethier. It wasn't her place to wonder why he was calling her by a name that wasn't hers, so she didn't mind. But she didn't _feel_ the same because she wasn't the same and no amount of wanting and wishing would make her the same. She didn't stop grinding on him when he asked her to go, so she needed an extra push.

"I'm not playin'. Get the fuck away from me," Rio growled, shoving her shoulders and knocking her back on the bed.

"You're fucking sick," she yelled back at him, eyes aflame as she shoved him back and slapped him. "Fuck you, you jerk! Have a good night jacking off alone!" she screamed before climbing off the bed, then looking for her clothes to put them back on, and storming out. For a few seconds, Rio just laid on the crappy bed and stared up at the ceiling with a deep pit in his stomach, feeling like he could vomit everywhere and not even because of the six tequila shots. But then he remembered that he put Lizzie in the bathroom 10 minutes ago when the girl first walked in the room. She barked loudly at him when he opened the door, ears pulled back and teeth bared. He really was a jerk for that. Lizzie ran out of the bathroom after that and jumped up on the bed to sleep. Rio splashed some water on his face before walking out of his room to the motel pool and laying down in the lawn chair next to Inez.

Inez reminded Rio exactly of his grandma, who he hadn't seen in too many years because after getting into crime it was much too risky to go across the border to visit his family again. But Inez came to San Diego way back in 1953, when she was just 4 years old, making her 71 years old. She had 4 kids, 12 grandkids, and 3 great-grandkids, so far. But they all spread out over the country and over the world, leaving her alone except on holidays, her birthday, and her husband's death day. When her house in Huntington Park burned down in a forest fire several months back, Inez moved down to Long Beach where she stayed at a motel. Where she eventually met Rio. And Rio reminded her exactly of her first grandson, MartÍn, who was living in Rome and came least frequently to see her.

The final things that gave Rio solace were the little sticks of wisdom that Inez would share with him. "Yo se lo que necesitas," she said, _I know just what you need_ , as she reached inside her cardigan pocket and gave Rio a joint, way back just a couple days after he showed up. Inez noticed him coming back to his motel room with a scowl on his face, again and again, like he seemed to be perpetually unhappy. He looked like someone that was running, but whether from the law, from another person, or from himself, Inez could not tell. And she wouldn't press him too hard on it because it was obvious Rio didn't want to talk about it.

Instead, he took the blunt and lit it up before sitting down by the pool next to her. Inez let herself be interviewed first, always an open book. She shared exclusively for weeks, until that day that she saw him bring another girl into his room and then saw the girl leave 10 minutes later, all angry. Inez decided now was the time for Rio to open up. She handed him another joint when he came back out of his motel room and met her outside.

"I know what you're running from now," Inez said in Spanish, sucking in the smoke then blowing it out. 

"What do you know?" Rio asked tiredly, letting his head fall back on the chair as he breathed in deep and blew out smoke.

"That's the second girl this week you've brought back here that's left. The first time, I assumed you said something stupid and she didn't want to be with you anymore. But the second time? You're making them go away on purpose, kid, aren't you?" Inez asked knowingly.

"And that means I'm running from...?" Rio asked in a mumbled voice, raising an eyebrow at Inez and waiting expectantly for her response.

"A woman. Maybe a man? But, more likely, a woman. I'm no psychic, though, so you'll have to tell me _why,_ " Inez pointed out.

Rio sighed, pouted, and opened his mouth. The tequila certainly helped him loosen up, the weed calmed him down, but most of all, Rio knew he needed help. Because trying to get his mind off it by hooking up with random women wasn't working, and drinking too much would only cause more damage. He didn't think he could go on living like this with a plague on his soul.

"She hurt me," he said quietly, tapping his fingers on his stomach.

"Did she cheat?" Inez questioned curiously.

"Worse..." Rio replied cryptically and waited for Inez to say something, but she refused to until she was given more information. "She almost killed me, Inez," he muttered, and Inez could hardly see him in the dark, only lit up my dim light posts several feet away, but she imagined the pain written all over his face, etched into every wrinkle.

"What did you do to make her do that?" Inez asked, making Rio feel offended like this was an interrogation.

"What makes you think _I_ did anything? _She shot me, three times,_ " Rio said defensively.

"There are two sides to every story... Come on, kid, I'm just a stranger. An elderly stoner lady. What do you have to be afraid to tell me about?" Inez asked in an effort to persuade him to be truthful.

Rio huffed angrily before taking another hit.

"Fine," Inez said defiantly. "Don't tell me."

After another hit, Rio admitted, "I guess I, uh, I fucked up her life. Convinced her to do shit she didn't want to do. Got her involved in shit she shouldn't have been involved in. But I didn't... I didn't think she'd have it in her to fight back."

Inez hummed. "You mean, because you underestimated her, or, because you thought she wouldn't hurt _you_?" she asked.

Rio shrugged his shoulders. "Both, I guess... And I... I still... I still I care about her. I act like I don't 'cause... 'Cause I'm scared that it'll never last. And that the next time shit blows up in my face, she'll finish the job. She'll finish me off. I'm scared 'cause maybe that's what I deserve, after everything I put her through," Rio explained more in-depth.

"Kid, you spend all your time wondering about different ways that it'll go wrong. You ever thought of wondering what it'll be like if everything just works out?" Inez challenged. Rio shook his head, bringing his hand up to scratch his beard and rub his eyes. He felt tears pricking at the corners of them.

"Because it won't," Rio answered bitterly.

"But what if it does?" Inez asked louder. "That's something you'll never know if you just keep running," she continued.

"No... No, I know. 'Cause I, when I came back, I hurt someone she cared about, a friend of hers. I blackmailed her. I stole from her. I just... I kept on hurting her, over and over. You think she'll just forgive me for all that? I sure as fuck wouldn't forgive me. And I can't forgive her, for putting three lead bullets in me," Rio grumbled.

"You wanted her to feel the hurt that she made you feel... Okay. Maybe you ran because you started seeing that when you mess with revenge, you can never win. Maybe you can make her feel the hurt, make her feel the pain, but what's the point? What's the point if you just hurt yourself two-fold in the process? Both of you, you and- uhm?" Inez was saying before she realized that she didn't know the woman's name.

"Elizabeth," Rio said. Inez nodded, thinking that she should have known, recalling the first time that Rio brought Lizzie to the motel last week and introduced them.

"You and Elizabeth have hurt each other enough. And you've hurt yourself far too much. How much more can you take? You say that you care about her. And you won't let any other women in, not even for casual sex. You even named your dog after her. But you say you won't ever forgive her... Just pick one, kid. I mean, you love her, and you hate her, and you hate yourself for loving her. That's just no way to live. Can't you let go of all the grief? Can't you see if you just go back and try, sincerely try, to make this better that there will be better times ahead?

"My second husband, he was the world to me. My gravity, my moon, my stars, my sun. All of it. Three years ago he passed away and I'll never be the same. How could I be? But I'm still so grateful to God for letting me have him for thirty-six of the best years of my life. For letting me grow old with him... Now, kid, do you really wanna go it alone for the rest of your life? _Can you?_ While knowing that there's someone out there that makes you feel the way Elizabeth does? Hell, if you can, you're the strongest person I've ever met. But, maybe, it's okay to be weak sometimes. It's okay to be vulnerable. Because that's the only way you'll ever let her in," Inez advised him, making him shudder in his seat. Rio let out a heavy sigh filled with smoke and sniffed hard.

"How?" he mumbled. "How do I just let it go?" he questioned softly, tears now falling from his eyes.

"When you live with pain for so long, you start believing the pain is what defines you. You wonder if there will even be anything left of you when the pain is gone. But, kid, the thing is that no matter how much the pain has become a part of you, how it is so deeply ingrained inside of you, you still deserve to be happy. You still deserve to be free of the pain, just as much as anyone else. If you want to let go of the pain, then just do it. There's no special tricks, no short cuts, or cheat codes. Just let it go," Inez answered, before slowly getting up from her lawn chair. The old woman walked another foot closer until she was standing over Rio's chair. She raised her hand to his cheek and gently held his face in her hand as she wiped away his tears. Rio remained totally quiet, allowing himself to feel her comfort and sympathy through her wrinkled fingertips. "If you can't let go, the only person that you'll never forgive is yourself, son," she whispered softly before saying good night and walking back to her room. After a few minutes more of laying by the pool in silence, Rio finally got up and went back to his room to sleep.

He didn't wake up the next day until past noon. Lizzie was up on the bed, licking his face and stomping her paws on his chest. His head was pounding when he opened his eyes and he felt half-dead as he pushed the blanket away from his body and carefully stood up without rattling his brain too much. He wiped his face of Lizzie's saliva and picked up her leash to take her outside, grabbing his phone and his room keys in the process. He rubbed his eyes when the sunlight from outside blinded him. They took a walk down the strip to the beach where Rio took a seat down in the sand, un-leashed Lizzie, and watched her as she ran up to the water and splashed around where the waves crashed. Rio picked his phone out of his pocket and pulled up Beth's contact information, then pressed the call button. It was a new phone that he picked up when he landed in Long Beach, and he added some important numbers to it, but he never dialed her from it before.

Beth picked it up after several seconds, said hello twice, and waited for the caller to respond, but he didn't. Because he wasn't ready just yet to talk to her again, and he called just to hear her voice. Rio thought of what Inez said to him last night. He could really only remember parts of it because of all the tequila. But when Beth said hello to him, he made another decision, one of the biggest ones of his life. He decided that it was time to start again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title was inspired by Valjean's Soliloquy from the musical play, Les Miserables.

**Author's Note:**

> Story title inspired by "Goodbye Angels" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The first chapter title comes from "Keys to the Kingdom" by Linkin Park.


End file.
